Milan Cathedral, dedicated to the Nativity of Mary, has a unique feature: its construction is still in progress. The first stone was laid in the year 1386 under the supervision of Simone da Orsenigo, general engineer appointed 16 October 1387 and since then the Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano is still in business.
If we think about it, the yard of the Milan Cathedral is open for over six hundred years. There is no similar case in the world.
A work of this kind could not be carried out without the contribution of all the milanesi. Many over the centuries have worked and continue to do so for the Fabbrica del Duomo, but many have donated their property or inheritance, large or small, in the belief that the construction of the Cathedral expresses the ideal that gives meaning to life, personal and of the community. The construction and maintenance of the cathedral is still financed in this way.
The construction of the cathedral departed from the apse and from there through the centuries until the development facade built in the nineteenth century. Between 1756 and 1774 we are building the spire topped by a gilded copper Madonnina that blesses the city of Milan, 108 meters in height.
The Cathedral was consecrated the first time October 16, 1418 by Pope Martin V and solemnly rededicated October 20, 1577 by St. Charles Borromeo who gave the definitive implant inside the Cathedral.
The numbers of the Duomo di Milano will leave you speechless: 52 columns (one for each week of the year), in over 400 statues of saints, while overall the statues of the Cathedral are more than 3,500, the last positioned in our day; the spiers are 135.
A curiosity. The material used for the construction of the Duomo, the precious marble that gives luster to the Cathedral Church, it was not even in town and nearby. The marble used for the Cathedral was one of the quarries of Candoglia on Lake Maggiore in Val d'Ossola. For centuries, thousands of stonecutters have extracted from the quarry, inside the mountain, not in the open, then the marble through a complex river route along the waterways natural and artificial (the canals named Navigli ) reached the lake of St Eustorgius, then the port of Milan. On the stones destined to the construction site was engraved: AUF, Ad Usum Fabricae. Only the material that carried these three letters engraved did not pay the duty due to transport, customs duty paid instead the other cargo.
As you can see from this brief exposure, the construction of the Cathedral is the result of the effort of the people of Milan that over the years has been united in its desire, at work and in our efforts to complete the construction of the cathedral church, place of faith and the center, not only religious but also civil city.
Even today when two milanesi want to give an appointment in the city center say I'll see you in the Cathedral, not wishing to see you within the Church, but we find ourselves in that place the symbol of the city center.
For those visiting Milan, wanted to learn more about the history of the Cathedral and visit his factory, we point out the website where you can find all the relevant information and also help, as has been done for over six hundred years, the construction and maintenance Church Cathedral: http://www.duomomilano.it/
We thought it useful today to tell the story of the construction of the Cathedral of Milan, as the history of a people working together for a common good larger Ideal for giving answer to the life of the individual and that of the community. As he said Antoni Gaudi, the great architect of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, "while I built the Sagrada, Sagrada built me", so you can say the same thing about the people of Milan: while the people edified the Duomo, this generated and shaped the 'cultural and political identity of the milanesi.
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