Duke, duke, duke of....Milan, Milan Milan.

Above: What is distracting Sandi and Ljiljana? It was early and there were few other people in the square at that hour.

Our first full day in Italy took us to Milan's Piazza del Duomo. (Aaaaaargh!! Get those bloody pigeons off me!!) Between the ornate cathedral and the statue of Italy's king Vittorio Emmanuele, our guide for the day, Marica, gave us a primer on the city's complicated list of rulers. She pulled people from the crowd to stand in for Milanese dukes, Austrian princesses, French kings and the like, as she narrated. She had to use almost every person in the large group to get through the presentation!


Above: Marica picks Blaine to represent the first Duke of Milan.

Prada purse slung over her shoulder, Marica told us (in a wonderful Cockney accent with German and Italian inflections!) Milan was first ruled by lords from the house of Della Torre, then the lords of the house of Visconti.

To the best of my memory, the tenth Visconti ruler gave himself the ducal title, making him to Duke of Milan #1.

The son who became Duke #2 continued a legacy of cruelty, for which he was assassinated.

His brother became Duke #3. This guy had no sons, so hired a mercernary for battlefield duty. He was happy to have a good warrior on staff, and to make sure this soldier didn't freelance with other states, #3 offered his six-year old daughter in marriage. Never mind that this soldier, Francesco, was 24 years older than the child. Never mind that Francesco was already married.

To cut a long story short: #3 dies, last of his line. Buh-bye, Viscontis. Francesco marries the child, becomes Duke #4 and establishes his own dynasty. Hello, Sforzas. Your name will always be associated with Milan, and the castle Francesco builds, bearing your name, will be one of the city's best-known landmarks, the Castello Sforzesco.

And thus begins the Ambrosian Republic (named for the city's patron saint.)

Francesco's son in Duke #5. We think he poisoned his mother, a pretty tough chick who kept her finger in Milanese politics. He's nasty. He's assassinated.

The title goes to his 7-year old brother. Duke #6 obviously isn't ready for ducal duty, so his uncle does the job. #6 mysteriously dies from poisoning (oh, the rumor mill had quite a workout that year!)....

And Uncle Lodovico becomes Duke #7. He loses Milan to the French!! Then the Swiss get involved, Milan goes back to #7 - briefly. Then it goes back to the French. Then it goes to Lodovico's son....

Maximilian Sforza is Duke #8.

Thereafter, it was French rule, Spanish rule, Austrian rule, rule by the Holy Roman Empire - not necessarily in that order.

The only reason I remember as much of the history lesson as I do, was because of Marica's very lively and informed presentation - in three languages. Since our group was combined with two other groups for the morning, there were Spanish, German and English speakers, and Marica repeated each chapter effortlessly in each of those languages.

Coming from Milan with its rich multi-cultural heritage, it's no wonder its citizens, such as Marica are such accomplished multi-linguists! Arianna, also a Milanesa, speaks English, French, Spanish and Swedish, and the Milanese dialect.

Milan's colorful political history stablized (at least temporarily) under the reign of King Vittorio Emanuel II, who united Italy.



This statue of Vittorio Emanuele (Aaaaaargh!! Get those bloody pigeons off me!!) is one of the main features of the Piazza del Duomo, and the incredible Galleria that links the Duomo and La Scala piazze is also named for him.

Here are links to my earlier Milan posts:

The Duomo and Galleria

Saturday afternoon in the Piazza del Duomo

On the roof of the Duomo

Gillian Coldsnow

Up on the Roof.

Sunday morning I went with two members of the group up to the Duomo rooftop to get up close and personal with the saints. I especially like those who sinned incomparably before turning it all around, thereby earning the right to be on the Duomo.

I took the paid elevator up, but you still have to walk the last bit up to the top. Here are a couple of shots from that excursion.



Cherri and Liz by one of the arches. You can see from the carved marble above them why the Duomo looks so lacy from the street.



Wish I knew enough about mythology and/or saints to know this guy's story....if you know why he's being held up (or pulled apart) by the cherubs, please post a comment to let me know!


You can walk across those massive roof tiles and get right up to the stained glass windows. Mass was in session when this shot was taken. I could hear the choir very clearly and smell incense too!



Now, THAT's a downspout, eh? Just one of the many gargoyles on the Duomo. One of them closely resembles a duck-billed platypus. No wonder Mark Twain said the statues including "every creeping thing!' (how King James....)


Imagine living with a Gothic cathedral right up against your home! See how close the saints and spires are to this block of apartments (possibly offices?), with rooftop gardens?

Finally, the Duomo!

Our delightful Milanese tour guide Arianna took us on a a ride on the subway and taught us about the city’s public transport system, as we will be on our own this afternoon and tomorrow. We then headed to the Piazza del Duomo to begin our city tour. We were disappointed that the façade of the world’s fourth largest (and possibly most ornate) cathedral was covered up for cleaning:



But there was an upside. We arrived while the Archbishop of Milan was saying Mass, with the choir and pipe organ in attendance. The interior of the Duomo is dark but even more ornate than the outside; with the choir’s voices resonating in that cavernous marble space it was spine-chilling. (Interior pictures not allowed, sorry.)

(BTW - I'll have some pics of Duomo details coming in a later post.)

Suffice it to say, Milan has been multicultural from the get go, having been ruled by the French, the Spanish and the Austrians, in the form of one powerful Duke or Prince after another. Finally, Milan was united with the rest of Italy under the reign of Vittorio Emannuele, who commissioned the building of a shopping mall—and what a mall it is!



I think it was Michael Palin who called Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele the Mother of All Shopping Malls.

The Galleria was a real favorite of Ernest Hemingway. Its arcades are domed and vaulted, its various arcades are elaborately tiled. You can't help but gasp at the enormous arched roof of iron and glass. (Tragic backstory: Just one day before the Galleria was inaugurated, the architect who designed the structure slipped from the scaffolding as he was inspecting the dome. He fell to his death.)

The upper levels have very detailed balconies, and what seem to be murals are actually mosaics. We were told the Milanese humidity (I can vouch that it certainly is humid!) would damage paintings, so the pieces were replaced with mosaic.



You know what's awfully incongruous in the Galleria? Right across from the Louis Vuitton and Prada boutiques, just to the right of this picture above, is – McDonalds! (I couldn't bring myself to photograph that, so use your mind's eye here, if you can stomach it.)

More pictures of the Galleria can be found at this site.