St. Vincent in Lawn: the House of the Magician

The ancient basilica of St. Vincent on the remains of a… Roman necropolis

Today, with this guided tour, you can discover the secrets of the House of the Magician: it is the church of San Vincenzo in Prato, one of the most incredible places in Milan. Behind a bare, bare brick facade, a jewel of Lombard architecture awaits us, a treasure trove of ancient stories and host precisely, during the 19th century, of the so-called House of the Magician. Erected on the road to Vigevano, the Basilica of San Vincenzo in Prato is among the oldest churches in Milan, built in its present form between the 9th and 11th centuries on the remains of a Roman necropolis that stretched between the Via Vercellina and the Via Ticinese. The dedication to Vincenzo, an Aragonese martyr particularly venerated in late antique Milan and dear to St. Augustine himself, reveals the early Christian origins of the cult to which the basilica building we still see was consecrated. Along the left side of the church we will discover, not surprisingly, the oldest remains discovered during the nineteenth-century restoration: cinerary ollae, tombstones, capitals and remnants of marble transennae, fragments of a fascinating history.

A basilica with precious and enigmatic decorations

In the company of our guide, we will then pass through the portal of the church, to explore the custodial treasures inside, along the three wide naves: the decorations of the apse on which the Zavattari worked in the 15th century (the same painters who decorated the magnificent Chapel of Theodolinda in the Cathedral of Monza!) and the tall columns topped by beautiful capitals adorned with dense foliage, often stripped from Roman buildings and evidence of a past full of enigmatic symbols, little known today. We reach the high altar by climbing a flight of steps, beneath which opens the crypt for the burial of martyrs: the only Milanese case, along with that of San Giovanni in Conca, of a Romanesque crypt that has survived to us. Finally, behind the altar, here is an ancient well, whose waters were believed to be miraculous.

St. Vincent in Meadow: from church to warehouse, from stable to factory

However, the cultic function of the basilica of San Vincenzo in Prato was suppressed at the end of the 18th century, when Napoleonic laws imposed the deconsecration of the church. Used as a military warehouse, stable and barracks, the beautiful Romanesque architecture found an incredible new destination in the first decade of the nineteenth century: it was then that, purchased by a private individual who placed an acid factory there, it earned the mysterious nickname Casa del Mago (House of the Magician). The church, which at the time was located in a fairly isolated, more open area surrounded by meadows, appeared to be an ideal site for the chemical factory founded by Francesco Bossi, already located in the former convent of San Gerolamo on Carducci Street and strongly objected to by the population for the terrible miasmas it produced. Now under the control of the Fornara company, the chemical laboratory established in the church of San Vincenzo in Prato remained active for much of the 19th century, causing the structure to be damaged over time and the loss of many 15th-century pictorial decorations. A chimney was built where the bell tower once stood, and because of the fumes and vapors that escaped from the windows, chimneys and every crevice of the church no name seemed more appropriate than the title Casa del Mago, by which the basilica is remembered in some disturbing etchings by Luigi Conconi!
Restored in neo-Romanesque style at the end of the 19th century, San Vincenzo in Prato is a place of a thousand faces, an essential destination for a guided tour aimed at those most curious about the history of the city of Milan.