Perhaps the biggest discovery during our recent visit to Milan lies before us. It is an exquisitely decorated Renaissance convent in the city’s historic southwest quarter: San Michele Mural painting.
Sometimes called Milan’s Sistine Chapel, San Michele Mural painting boasts profusely and beautifully decorated walls and ceilings. San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore was once home to an important Benedictine convent. The convent was founded in the early 16th century. Many of its cloistered residents were noble ladies. Nothing about its plain exterior prepares you for the riot of decoration inside San Michele Mural painting.
Built on an ancient Roman site, San Michele Mural painting was decorated in stages over several centuries. Every interior wall is covered in luminous colors befitting the pomp of Lombard aristocratic taste. Many paintings in San Michele Mural painting were commissioned by the powerful Sforza family. The Sforzas were primary sponsors of Leonardo da Vinci.
San Michele Mural painting is entirely frescoed by prominent Lombard painters. These include Paolo Lomazzo and Bernardino Luini with his two sons. In particular, frescoes by Bernardino Luini, a student of da Vinci, blend the sacred and the profane. Luini used members of the court as models for portraits of saints. Most of the numerous religious and secular works of the Milanese painter have been lost. San Michele Mural painting is the best place to see his works.
The 16th-century Countess of Challant may have been the model for a fresco of the beheading of Saint Catherine. The thrice-married countess was known as a black widow. She was eventually denounced and beheaded herself for doing away with her first two husbands.
In the late 1500s, at the instruction of Archbishop Charles Borromeo, a painting was added to cover the grillwork. The grillwork had previously allowed the cloistered nuns to view church services in San Michele Mural painting. A small door in an ornately decorated wall provided the cloistered nuns behind the grill with access to communion.
The nuns’ choir behind the grillwork is as ornamented with paintings as the church out front. Within light streaming in from a window at the back, the atmosphere is serene and contemplative. This is despite the many frescoes lining the walls of side chapels and the clerestory of the choir itself. The choir features an organ from 1554 by Gian Giacomo Antegnani. Its doors are painted in tempera by Francesco Medici.
The Archaeological Museum of Milan now occupies a portion of the convent. The Italian Touring Club’s Aperti per Voi initiative promotes the opening of cultural sites across Italy. This is through the collaboration of Volunteers for Cultural Heritage. San Michele Mural painting is just one of fourteen Aperti per Voi sites in Milan.
Located at the corner of Via Luini and Corso Magenta, San Michele Mural painting is easily accessible via public transport.
San Michele Mural painting stands as a testament to Milan’s rich artistic and religious history. Its walls whisper tales of powerful families, talented artists, and the lives of cloistered nuns. Take a moment to appreciate the beauty and history that surrounds you.