Behind striking Renaissance-revival black-and-white walls, Milan’s wealthy have kept their dynastic ambitions alive long after death with grand sculptural gestures since 1866. Nineteenth-century death-and-the-maiden eroticism gives way to some fabulous abstract forms from mid-century masters. Studio BBPR’s geometric steel-and-marble memorial to Milan’s WWII concentration camp dead sits in the centre, stark and moving. Grab a map inside the forecourt.
Enter through the Famedio (Temple of Fame), originally designed as a church but now a sepulchre for the city's great and good. Inside, directly beneath the star-studded lapis dome, is the sarcophagus of novelist and father of Italian letters Alessandro Manzoni, while Milan's most famous artist and footballer, Francesco Hayez and Giuseppe Meazza, can be found in the crypt below.
