Church of St. Maurice in Major Monastery

The Benedictine monastery at this site dates back to the 8th or 9th century. Construction of the church itself began in 1503 and wrapped twelve years later. It was built directly atop ancient Roman ruins, including part of a hippodrome. The church layout is unique: a dividing wall splits the rectangular nave in two, with one section for the public and the other for cloistered nuns. Until 1794, the nuns were strictly forbidden to cross that wall. Behind the plain gray facade lies what locals call Milan’s Sistine Chapel. The restoration took 30 years and revealed 4,000 square meters of frescoes. Bernardino Luini, a student of Leonardo da Vinci, worked here with his school from 1522 to 1530. In one chapel, the face of Saint Catherine in a beheading scene is reportedly that of the Countess of Challant, who was herself beheaded at Sforza Castle in 1526 for arranging her lover’s murder.