Milan Cathedral

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Milan's cathedral is dedicated to Santa Maria Nascente, the Nativity of Mary, the very feast the Church celebrates today, and the whole building is her birthday gift six centuries in the making. Begun in 1386 under Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who founded the Veneranda Fabbrica that still cares for it, the largest church in Italy rose in pink-veined Candoglia marble, bristling with 135 spires and some 3,400 statues, and was only declared finished in 1965. From the highest spire the gilded Madonnina has watched over the city since 1774, and by cherished tradition nothing in Milan may stand above her, so when taller towers rose, replicas of the Madonnina were placed on their roofs to keep her at the city's highest point. Walk the rooftop terraces among the spires, and beneath your feet lies the baptistery where Ambrose baptized Augustine in 387.