The mysteries of the Church of San Bernardino alle Ossa

The church of San Bernardino between history and legends

Our guided tour starts from San Bernardino alle Ossa, the Baroque church overlooking Piazza Santo Stefano and also formerly remembered by the mournful name of San Bernardino ai Morti. Formerly founded, in the 13th century, near the hospital of San Barnaba in Brolo and the adjoining cemetery, it was later enlarged and embellished, in refined late Baroque forms, between the 17th and 18th centuries. An airy dome, marble surfaces and sumptuous decorations… But the scenery changes from there a few steps away, as soon as you enter the small ossuary: every wall, every niche, every cornice or pillar is here entirely covered with human bones! Skulls, shinbones, femurs, probably belonging to the dead of the hospital of San Barnaba in Brolo or exhumed from suppressed seventeenth-century cemeteries; and high above, on the vault, Sebastiano Ricci‘s frescoes, a whirling vortex of souls in flight, nicely sublimates the mournful decoration of the walls, with that eccentric elegance that is characteristic of the Rococo. Impossible, in this place, not to recall the ancient legend that the bones of a little girl placed to the left of the altar come back to life every November 2, dragging behind all the other skeletons, in a sort of macabre dance…

From San Bernardino to the Cathedral… So many ghosts roaming the city center!

But let us delve with our guides into the streets of downtown Milan: here, too, there is no shortage of spectres. It is said that in the Ambrosiana Palace roams the ghost of one of the most beautiful and unscrupulous women of the Renaissance: it is Lucrezia Borgia, who at night delicately combs her long blond hair, given to Pietro Bembo as a token of love and today kept in a precious shrine on display in the Pinacoteca.
And what about the dramatic story of Carlina, the bride who plunged into the void from the roofs of the Duomo? According to legend, the body was never found again… Mystery! Walking under the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, we will also recall the tragic end of the architect who gave it form, Giuseppe Mengoni. The day before the inauguration he fell from a scaffold placed on the archway overlooking Piazza Duomo. Fatality or suicide? In Piazza della Scala also still hovers the curse of Palazzo Marino, dating back to the time of its foundation in the mid-sixteenth century: its first owner, Tommaso Marino, a very wealthy Genoese banker, financier of popes, emperors and the State of Milan itself, in fact remained infamous for the cruel harassment inflicted on his debtors. We will finally conclude our ghost tour with the story of the curate of the Church of San Tomaso, in via Broletto: he was punished for his cruelty and corruption by Giovanni Maria Visconti, who ordered the ducal armigers to bury him alive in a coffin along with a dead man whose funeral he did not want to perform for free. Afraid? With our guides you will certainly be safe!

Follow them in an original itinerary, ideal for all curious people who want to visit the city in noir, to celebrate Halloween, and more!