Piazza San Sepolcro

Piazza San Sepolcro, together with the Ambrosiana complex, corresponds to the area occupied in the Roman era by the Forum, the centre of city life on which the two main roads (the cardo and the decumanus) converged. The way the area is laid out today suggests that there has been a grid-style network of streets here since Roman times. The Church of Santo Sepolcro (1) was founded in the 9th century but reconstructed immediately after the First Crusade (1096-99) in imitation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. A number of celebrated sketches by Leonardo Da Vinci still exist showing the Romanesque church with three aisles, matronea and a crypt. A floor of marble slabs found among the slender columns of the crypt probably belonged to the ancient Roman forum. Cardinal Federigo Borromeo commissioned Aurelio Trezzi to remodel the interior of the church and in 1605 the original pillars were replaced by eight granite columns with Corinthian capitals, and the matronea were removed. The façade, which was redesigned in the 18th century, was remodelled in the Lombard Romanesque style by Gaetano Moretti and Cesare Nava in 1894-97. Other features of the square include the Ambrosiana Library (2) (with its temple-like entrance) and Palazzo Castani (3), whose doorway and parts of the courtyard are all that remains of the original 15th-century building, which now has an 18th-century façade. In 1937 it was the headquarters of the Fascist Federation; during this period Piero Portaluppi designed the new east wing and tower.