The nuns' hall
An unbroken fresco sky over the choir stalls โ the hidden summit.
รรฐinn โ CC BY-SA 2.5 ca ยท รรฐinn โ CC BY-SA 2.5 ca ยท Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Casalmaggiore Provincia โ CC BY-SA 4.0
Because its front disguises itself as an ordinary building, no ticket advertises it and no queue betrays it โ leaving it to the knowing and readers of good guides. That is half its magic: from a plain street into a total explosion of colour, nearly alone.
One rule: the first hall is the overture, so do not fill up on it โ pass the small door right of the altar into the nuns' hall where the essence waits, and look up long. Then return and read the first hall better.
It sits nearly on the Last Supper's own route โ sequence them and Corso Magenta becomes Milan's richest artistic kilometre. The Archaeological Museum adjoins, for lovers of Roman Milan.
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Behind an unpromising grey front on Corso Magenta hides the "Sistine of Milan": a sixteenth-century church whose every centimetre of wall and vault was covered by Bernardino Luini โ Leonardo's most graceful follower โ his sons and their contemporaries, frescoes leaving no void, colours still burning after five centuries. The church is two halls: the public one in front and, beyond the painted screen, the cloistered nuns' hall โ this was the church of Milan's greatest convent, its hidden nuns following mass through grilles in the dividing wall. The rear hall is the summit: wooden choir stalls beneath an unbroken sky of fresco. Entry is free โ among Milan's most generous artistic gifts โ and its neighbour in the same complex, the Archaeological Museum, keeps the Roman city wall and tower.
An unbroken fresco sky over the choir stalls โ the hidden summit.
Leonardo's school at its most tender and sweet.
The openings through which the cloistered watched the world โ a story in a wall.
Corso Magenta 15, 20123 Milan