Milan

Milan Milano
—  Comune  —
Comune di Milano
Piazza Duomo
Coat of arms
Milan Location of Milan in Italy
Coordinates: 45°27′51″N 09°11′25″E / 45.46417°N 9.19028°E / 45.46417; 9.19028Coordinates: 45°27′51″N 09°11′25″E / 45.46417°N 9.19028°E / 45.46417; 9.19028
Country	Italy
Region	Lombardy
Province	Milan (MI)
Government
- Mayor	Letizia Moratti (People of Freedom)
Area
- Total	183.77 km2 (71 sq mi)
Elevation	120 m (394 ft)
Population (30 April 2009)[1]
- Total	1,301,394
- Density	7,081.6/km2 (18,341.4/sq mi)
- Demonym	Milanesi
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
- Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	20100, 20121-20162
Dialing code	02
Patron saint	Ambrose
Saint day	December 7
Website	Official website

Milan (Italian: Milano Italian pronunciation: [miˈla(ː)no]; Western Lombard: Milan (listen)) in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million.^[2] The Milan metropolitan area, by far the largest in Italy, is estimated by OECD to have a population of 7.4 million.^[3]

Milan is renowned as one of the world capitals of design and fashion.^[4] The English word millinery, referring to women's hats, is derived from the name of the city. The Lombard metropolis is famous for its fashion houses and shops (such as along Via Montenapoleone) and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in the Piazza Duomo (reputed to be the world's oldest shopping mall). Milan is regarded as the true fashion capital of the world, according to the 2009 Global Language Monitor,^[5] and annually competes with other major international centres, such as New York, Paris, Rome and London. Some of the finest Italian fashion houses, such as Gucci, Prada,^[6] Versace, Missoni, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, Valentino, Trussardi, Luxottica and Moschino, to name a few, are headquartered in the city. The city also contains boutiques and important offices of other major labels, such as Max Mara, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, Ferragamo, Fendi and Hermès.

An international and cosmopolitan city, 13.9% of Milan's population is from abroad.^[7] Milan's global importance and influence in fashion, opera, finance, business, culture, literature, commerce, industry and media make it one of GaWC's major Alpha world cities, ranking amongst the top 18 global cities, along with Madrid, Seoul, Moscow, Toronto, Brussels, Mumbai, Buenos Aires and Kuala Lumpur.^[8] Milan is one of the EU and the world's most important centres for business and finance, with its economy (see economy of Milan) being the world's 26th richest by purchasing power,^[9] with a GDP of $115 billion, and the Milan metropolitan area has Europe's 4th highest GDP, that of € 241.2 billion (US$ 312.3 billion) in 2004, which means that were Milan a country, it would be the world's 28th richest, near in size to that of the economy of Austria. Milan, also, has one of Italy's highest GDP (per capita), about €35,137 (US$ 52,263), which is 161.6% of the EU average GDP per capita.^[10] The city is also the world's 11th most expensive city for expatriate employees.^[11]

The city hosted the World Exposition in 1906 and will host the Universal Expo in 2015, and currently the FieraMilano fair is considered the largest in Europe. Milan is a city rich in art, history and culture. La Scala, built in 1778, is considered one of the most prestigious and important opera houses in the world,^[12] and the city hosts a fine collection of museums, art galleries, churches, libraries, universities and academies. The Brera Academy, founded by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria is a very important European art gallery.^[13] Also, the Milan Cathedral took five centuries to complete, is the fourth largest cathedral in the world and is regarded as a masterpiece of Gothic architecture.^[14] The Bocconi University in the city, ranks among the top 20 best business schools in the world by The Wall Street Journal,^[15][16] and the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore is the biggest Catholic university in the world.^[17]

Inhabitants of Milan are referred to as "Milanese" (Italian: Milanesi or informally Meneghini or Ambrosiani).

History

Etymology

The word Milan derives from the ancient Latin name of the city, Mediolanum. This name is borne by a number of Gallo-Roman sites in France, such as Mediolanum Santonum (Saintes) and Mediolanum Aulercorum (Evreux) and appears to contain the Celtic element -lan, signifying an enclosure or demarcated territory (source of the Welsh word 'llan', meaning a sanctuary or church). Hence, Mediolanum could signify the central town or sanctuary of a particular Celtic tribe.

The origin of the name and of a boar as a symbol of the city are fancifully accounted for in Andrea Alciato's Emblemata (1584), beneath a woodcut of the first raising of the city walls, where a boar is seen lifted from the excavation, and the etymology of Mediolanum given as "half-wool",^[18] explained in Latin and in French. The foundation of Milan is credited to two Celtic peoples, the Bituriges and the Aedui, having as their emblems a ram and a boar;^[19] therefore "The city's symbol is a wool-bearing boar, an animal of double form, here with sharp bristles, there with sleek wool."^[20] Alciato credits the most saintly and learned Ambrose for his account.^[21]

The German name for the city is Mailand, while in the local Western Lombard dialect, the city's name is Milán.

Roman times

Ruins of the Emperor's palace in Milan. Here Costantinus and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan.

Around 400 BC, the Celtic Insubres inhabited Milan and the surrounding region. In 222 BC, the Romans conquered this settlement, which received the name Mediolanum. After several centuries of Roman control, Milan was declared the capital of the Western Roman Empire by Emperor Diocletian in 293 AD. Diocletian chose to stay in the Eastern Roman Empire (capital Nicomedia) and his colleague Maximianus the Western one. Immediately Maximian built several gigantic monuments, like a large circus (470 x 85 meters), the Thermae Erculee, a large complex of imperial palaces and several other services and buildings.

In the Edict of Milan of 313, Emperor Constantine I guaranteed freedom of religion for Christians. The city was besieged by the Visigoths in 402, and the imperial residence was moved to Ravenna. Fifty years later (in 452), the Huns overran the city. In 539, the Ostrogoths conquered and destroyed Milan in the course of the so-called Gothic War against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. In the summer of 569, the Longobards (from which the name of the Italian region Lombardy derives) conquered Milan, overpowering the small Byzantine army left for its defence. Some Roman structures remained in use in Milan under Lombard rule.^[22] Milan surrendered to the Franks in 774 when Charlemagne, in an utterly novel decision, took the title "King of the Lombards" as well (before then the Germanic kingdoms had frequently conquered each other, but none had adopted the title of King of another people). The Iron Crown of Lombardy dates from this period. Subsequently Milan was part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Middle Ages

Castello Sforzesco, symbol of the power of the House of Sforza

During the Middle Ages, Milan prospered as a center of trade due to its command of the rich plain of the Po and routes from Italy across the Alps. The war of conquest by Frederick I Barbarossa against the Lombard cities brought the destruction of much of Milan in 1162. After the founding of the Lombard League in 1167, Milan took the leading role in this alliance. As a result of the independence that the Lombard cities gained in the Peace of Constance in 1183, Milan became a duchy. In 1208 Rambertino Buvalelli served a term as podestà of the city, in 1242 Luca Grimaldi, and in 1282 Luchetto Gattilusio. The position could be fraught with personal dangers in the violent political life of the medieval commune: in 1252 Milanese heretics assassinated the Church's Inquisitor at a ford in the nearby contado; the killers bribed their way to freedom, and in the ensuing riot the podestà was very nearly lynched. In 1256 the archbishop and leading nobles were expelled from the city. In 1259 Martino della Torre was elected Capitano del Popolo by members of the guilds; he took the city by force, expelled his enemies, and ruled by dictatorial powers, paving streets, digging canals, successfully taxing the countryside.

His policy, however, brought the Milanese treasure to collapse; the use of often reckless mercenary units further angered the population, granting an increasing support for the Della Torre traditional enemies, the Visconti.

On 22 July 1262 Ottone Visconti was created archbishop of Milan by Pope Urban IV, against the Della Torre candidate, Raimondo della Torre, Bishop of Como. The latter thus started to publicize a allegations of the Visconti's nearness to the heretic Cathars and charged them of high treason: the Visconti, who accused the Della Torre of the same crimes, were then banned from Milan and their properties confiscated. The civil war which ensued caused more damage to Milan's population and economy, lasting for more than a decade.

Ottone Visconti led a group of exiles unsuccessfully against the city in 1263, but after years of escalating violence on all sides, finally, after the victory in the Battle of Desio (1277), he won the city for his family. The Visconti succeeded in ousting the della Torre forever, ruling the city and its possession until the 15th century.

In 1395, Gian Galeazzo Visconti became duke of Milan. In 1447 Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, died without a male heir; following the end of the Visconti line, the Ambrosian Republic was enacted. However, the Republic collapsed when in 1450, Milan was conquered by Francesco Sforza, of the House of Sforza, which made Milan one of the leading cities of the Italian Renaissance.

Periods of Spanish, French and Austrian domination

Milan in the 17th century

The French king Louis XII first laid claim to the duchy in 1492. At that time, Milan was defended by Swiss mercenaries. After the victory of Louis's successor Francis I over the Swiss at the Battle of Marignano, the duchy was promised to the French king Francis I. When the Habsburg Charles V defeated Francis I at the Battle of Pavia in 1525, northern Italy, including Milan, passed to the House of Habsburg. In 1556, Charles V abdicated in favour of his son Philip II and his brother Ferdinand I. Charles's Italian possessions, including Milan, passed to Philip II and the Spanish line of Habsburgs, while Ferdinand's Austrian line of Habsburgs ruled the Holy Roman Empire.

However, in 1700 the Spanish line of Habsburgs was extinguished with the death of Charles II. After his death, the War of the Spanish Succession began in 1701 with the occupation of all Spanish possessions by French troops backing the claim of the French Philippe of Anjou to the Spanish throne. In 1706, the French were defeated in Ramillies and Turin and were forced to yield northern Italy to the Austrian Habsburgs. In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht formally confirmed Austrian sovereignty over most of Spain's Italian possessions including Lombardy and its capital, Milan.

The Great Plague of Milan in 1629–31 killed an estimated 60,000 people out of a population of 130,000. This episode is considered one of the last outbreaks of the centuries-long pandemic of plague which began with the Black Death.^[23]

19th century

Milanese patriots fight Austrian troops during the Five Days.

Napoleon conquered Lombardy in 1796, and Milan was declared capital of the Cisalpine Republic. Later, he declared Milan capital of the Kingdom of Italy and was crowned in the Duomo. Once Napoleon's occupation ended, the Congress of Vienna returned Lombardy, and Milan, along with Veneto, to Austrian control in 1815.^[24] During this period, Milan became a centre of lyric opera. Here Mozart wrote three operas, and in a few years La Scala became the reference theatre in the world,^[25] with its premières of Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini and Verdi. Verdi himself is now tumulated in a precious Institute, the "Casa di Riposo per Musicisti", the Verdi's present to Milan. In the 19th century other important theatres were La Cannobiana and the Teatro Carcano.

On March 18, 1848, the Milanese rebelled against Austrian rule, during the so-called "Five Days" (Italian: Le Cinque Giornate), and Field Marshall Radetzky was forced to withdraw from the city temporarily. However, after defeating Italian forces at Custoza on July 24, Radetzky was able to reassert Austrian control over Milan and northern Italy. However, Italian nationalists, championed by the Kingdom of Sardinia, called for the removal of Austria in the interest of Italian unification. Sardinia and France formed an alliance and defeated Austria at the Battle of Solferino in 1859.^[26] Following this battle, Milan and the rest of Lombardy were incorporated into the Kingdom of Sardinia, which soon gained control of most of Italy and in 1861 was rechristened as the Kingdom of Italy.

The political unification of Italy cemented Milan's commercial dominance over northern Italy. It also led to a flurry of railway construction that made Milan the rail hub of northern Italy. Rapid industrialization put Milan at the centre of Italy's leading industrial region, though in the 1890s Milan was shaken by the Bava-Beccaris massacre, a riot related to a high inflation rate. Meanwhile, as Milanese banks dominated Italy's financial sphere, the city became the country's leading financial centre. Milan's economic growth brought a rapid expansion in the city's area and population during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

20th century

View of Milan in 1931

In 1919, Benito Mussolini organized the Blackshirts, who formed the core of Italy's Fascist movement, in Milan. In 1922, Mussolini started his March on Rome from Milan. During the Second World War Milan suffered severe damage from British and American bombing. Even though Italy quit the war in 1943, the Germans occupied most of Northern Italy until 1945. Some of the worst Allied bombing of Milan was in 1944 and much of them focused around Milan's main railway station. In 1943, anti-German resistance in occupied Italy increased and there was much fighting in Milan.

The Pirelli Tower under construction, symbol of the post-war Italian economic miracle

As the war came to an end, the American 1st Armored Division advanced on Milan as part of the Po Valley Campaign. But even before they arrived, members of the Italian resistance movement rose up in open revolt in Milan and liberated the city. Nearby, Mussolini and several members of his Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana, or RSI) were captured by the resistance at Dongo and executed. On 29 April 1945, the bodies of the Fascists were taken to Milan and hanged unceremoniously upside-down at piazzale Loreto, a major public square.

After the war the city was the site of a refugee camp for Jews fleeing from Austria. During the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s a large wave of internal immigration, especially from Southern Italy, moved to Milan and the population peaked at 1,723,000 in 1971. The population of Milan begun to shrink during the late 1970s, so in the last 30 years almost one third of the total city population moved to the outer belt of new suburbs and small cities that grew around Milan proper^{[citation needed]}. At the same time the city become to attract also increasing fluxes of foreign immigration. Emblematic of the new phenomenon is the quick and great extension of a Milanese Chinatown, a district in the area around Via Paolo Sarpi, Via Bramante, Via Messina and Via Rosmini, populated by Chinese immigrants from Zhejiang, one of today's most picturesque districts in the city. Milan is also home to one-third of all Filipinos in Italy, harboring a sizeable and steadily growing population that numbers just over 33,000^[27] with a birth rate averaging 1000 births a year.^[28] Overall, Milan's population seems to have stabilized in recent years, and there has been only a slight increase in the population of the city since 2001.

Municipal Administration

The nine districts of Milan

Politics

• Name of the Mayor: Letizia Moratti
• Date of election: May 30, 2006
• Party: The People of Freedom

Of nine boroughs into which Milan is divided, eight are governed by centre-right coalition (1-8) and one by centre-left coalition (9).

Administrative divisions

The city of Milan is subdivided into administrative zones, called Zona. Before 1999, the city had 21 Zone; in 1999 the administration decided to reduce the number of these zones from 21 to 9. Today, the Zona 1 is in the "historic centre", the zone within the perimeter of the Spanish-era city walls; the other eight cover the areas from the Zona 1 borders to the city limits.^[29]

Geography

Topography

The district of Milan is located in the Padan Plain in the west-central area, inclusive among the rivers Ticino and Adda, among the river Po and the first reliefs of the Alps. It has a surface area of 181 km² and is 122 metres above sea level.

Climate

Under the Köppen climate classification, Milan is typically classified as having a Sub-Continental Climate unlike most of central and southern Italy which is famous for its comfortable Mediterranean climate. Milan's summers are typically warm and humid, while winters are cold.

Average temperatures are -4/+6°C in January and +15/+28°C in July. Snowfalls are relatively common in winter, even if in the last 15–20 years they have decreased in frequency and amount. The historic average of Milan's area is between 35 and 45 cm (16"/18"); single snowfalls over 30–50 cm in 1–3 days happen periodically, with a record of 80-100 cm during the famous snowfall of January 1985. Humidity is quite high during the whole year and annual precipitation averages about 1000 mm (40 in). In the stereotypical image, the city is often shrouded in the fog characteristic of the Po Basin, although the removal of rice fields from the southern neighbourhoods, the urban heat island effect and the reduction of pollution levels have reduced this phenomenon in recent years, at least in the downtown.

Main sights

Milan Cathedral: altar of the Madonna dell'Albero

There are few remains of the ancient Roman colony that later became a capital of the Western Roman Empire. During the second half of the 4th century CE, Saint Ambrose was bishop of Milan and had a strong influence on the layout of the city, redesigning the centre (even if the cathedral and baptistery built by Ambrose are now lost) and building the great basilicas at the city gates: Saint Ambros, Saint Nazarus, Saint Simplician and Saint Eustorgius, which still stand, refurbished over the centuries, as some of the finest and most important churches in Milan.

The biggest and greatest example of Gothic architecture in Italy, the Milan Cathedral, is the fourth largest cathedral in the world^[31] after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Cathedral of Seville and a new cathedral in the Ivory Coast.^[31] Built between 1386 and 1577, it hosts the world's largest collection of marble statues with the widely visible golden Madonna statue on top of the spire, nicknamed by the people of Milan as Madunina (the little Madonna), that became one of the symbols of the city.

Leonardo's The Last Supper

The rule of the Sforza family, between the 14th and 15th century, was another period in which art and architecture flourished. The Sforza Castle became the seat of an elegant Renaissance court,^[32] while great works, such as the Ospedale Maggiore, the public hospital designed by Filarete were built, and artists of the calibre of Leonardo da Vinci came to work in Milan, leaving works of inestimable value, such as the fresco of the Last Supper and the Codex Atlanticus. Bramante also came to Milan to work on the construction of some of the most beautiful churches in the city; in Santa Maria delle Grazie the beautiful luminous tribune is by Bramante, as is the church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro.

The Counter-Reformation was also the period of Spanish domination and was marked by two powerful figures: Saint Charles Borromeo and his cousin, Cardinal Federico Borromeo. Not only did they impose themselves as moral guides to the people of Milan, but they also gave a great impulse to culture, with the creation of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, in a building designed by Francesco Maria Ricchino, and the nearby Pinacotech. Many beautiful churches and Baroque mansions were built in the city during this period by the architects, Pellegrino Tibaldi, Galeazzo Alessi and Ricchino himself.^[33]

La Scala Opera House

Empress Maria Theresa of Austria was responsible for the significant renovations carried out in Milan during the 18th century. She instigated profound social and civil reforms, as well as the construction of many of the buildings that still today constitute the pride of the city, like the Teatro alla Scala, inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and today one of the world's most famous opera houses. The annexed Scala Museum contains a collection of paintings, drafts, statues, costumes, and other documents regarding opera and La Scala's history. La Scala also hosts the Ballet School of the Teatro alla Scala. The Austrian sovereign also promoted culture in Milan through projects such as converting the ancient Jesuit College, in the district of Brera, into a scientific and cultural centre with a Library, an astronomic observatory and the botanical gardens, in which the Art Gallery and the Academy of Fine Arts are today placed side by side.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

In the second half of the 19th century, Milan assumed the status of main industrial city of the peninsula and drew inspiration to the urbanization from other European capitals, center of those technological innovations that constituted the symbol of the second industrial revolution and, consequently, of the great social change that had been put in motion. The great Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a covered passage that connects Piazza del Duomo, Milan to the square opposite of La Scala, was built by Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877 to celebrate Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of united Italy. The passage is covered over by an arching glass and cast iron roof, a popular design for 19th-century arcades, such as the Burlington Arcade, London, which was the prototype for larger glazed shopping arcades, beginning with the Saint-Hubert Gallery in Brussels and the Passazh in St Petersburg.

The tumultuous period of the 20th century, for the rapid economic growth that was accompanied by an increase in the population and the founding of new districts, but also for the strong drive for architectural renewal, has produced some of the milestones in the city’s architectural history such as the Pirelli Tower (1955-59), the Velasca Tower (1958), the creation of new residential districts and, in recent years, the construction of the new exhibition centre in Rho and the requalification of once industrial areas, that have been transformed into modern residential districts and services, like the City Life business and residential center.

On January 23, 2003 a Garden of the Righteous was established in Monte Stella to commemorate those who opposed genocides and crimes against the humankind. It hosts trees dedicated to Moshe Bejski, Andrei Sakharov, the founders of the Gardens of the Righteous in Yerevan and Sarajevo Svetlana Broz and Pietro Kuciukian, and others. The decision to commemorate a "Righteous" in this Garden is made every year by a commission of high-profile characters.

Demographics

The city proper has a population of 1,301,394 inhabitants as of April 2009. Since the population peak of 1971, the city proper has lost almost one third of its population, mostly due to suburban sprawl subsequent to the deindustrialization process of the last three decades. The urban area of Milan, largely coinciding with its administrative province, is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million. The growth of many suburbs and satellite settlements around the city proper since the great economic boom of the 1950-60s have defined the extent and pattern of the metropolitan area, and commuting flows suggest that socioeconomic linkages have expanded well beyond the boundaries of the city and its province, creating a metropolitan area of 7.4 million population expanded all over the central section of Lombardy region.^[34][35] It has been suggested that the Milan metropolitan area is part of the so-called Blue Banana, the area of Europe with the highest population and industrial density.^[36]

Ethnic groups

Country of Birth	Population (2008)
Italy	1,301,394
Philippines	28,735
Egypt	23,546
China	15,244
Peru	14,104
Ecuador	12,136
Sri Lanka	11,083
Romania	9,612
Morocco	6,752
Albania	4,608
Ukraine	3,920
France	3,484
Bangladesh	2,678
Brazil	2,592
El Salvador	2,564
Eritrea	2,360
Japan	1,967
Germany	1,954
United Kingdom	1,812
Senegal	1,728
Spain	1,554
Tunisia	1,469
Moldova	1,454
Mauritius	1,293
Bulgaria	1,193
Serbia	1,128
Turkey	1,037
United States	1,030

Immigration

Since the end of World War II, Milan has been host to two waves of mass immigration, the first from within Italy, the second from outside the peninsula. These two immigrations have corresponded with two different economic phases. The first immigration coincided with the economic miracle of 1950s and 1960s, a period of extraordinary growth based around classic industry and public works. The second immigration has taken place against the background of a vastly different economy, centered around services, small industry and post-industrial scenarios. The first concerned Italians, from the countryside, the mountains and the cities of the South, the East or the other provinces of Lombardy. The second concerns non-Italians, from a myriad of countries but above all from North Africa, South Africa, North America, South America, Asia, South Asia, Oceania, Europe, European Union, and Eastern Europe. By the end of the 1990s Milan had a 10 per cent foreign immigrant population, the vast majority of whom worked in the low-level service sector (restaurant workers, cleaners, maids, domestic workers) or in factories.^[37] As of January 2008, the Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT estimated that 181,393 foreign-born immigrants lived in Milan, representing 13.9% of the total population.^[7]

Economy

Milan is one of the world's major financial and business centres, with a 2004 GDP of € 241.2 billion (US$ 312.3 billion).^[38] the Milan metropolitan area has the 4th highest GDPs in Europe: were it a country, it would rank as the twenty-eighth largest economy in the world, almost as large as the Austrian economy^[39]

A view of the city of Milan, including its CBD, the Pirelli Tower and numerous other skyscrapers.

The city is the seat of the Italian Stock Exchange (the Borsa Italiana) and its hinterland is the largest industrial area in Italy. It was included in a list of ten "Alpha world cities" by Peter J. Taylor and Robert E. Lang of the Brookings Institution in the economic report "U.S. Cities in the 'World City Network'" (Key Findings, Full ReportPDF (940 KB)).

In the late 12th century the arts flourished and the making of armours was the most important industry. This period saw the beginning of those irrigation works which still render the Lombard plain a fertile garden. The development of the wool trade subsequently gave the first impetus to the production of silk.

As in Venice and Florence, the making of luxury goods was an industry of such importance that in the 16th century the city gave its name to the English word “milaner” or “millaner”, meaning fine wares like jewellery, cloth, hats and luxury apparel. By the 19th century, a later variant, “millinery”, had come to mean one who made or sold hats.

The industrial revolution in Northern Europe gave a new prominence to the north area of Milan. It sat on the trade route for goods coming over the Alps, and built mills powered by water from the many rivers and streams.

In the mid-19th century cheaper silk began to be imported from Asia and the pest phylloxera damaged silk and wine production. More land was subsequently given over to industrialisation. Textile production was followed by metal and mechanical and furniture manufacture.

Today Milan is a major centre for the production of textile and garments, automobiles (Alfa Romeo) , chemicals, industrial tools, heavy machinery, book and music publishing.

FieraMilano, the exhibition center, had a fair ground known as "FieraMilanoCity", which was dismantled, except for a few remarkable buildings (including the cycle sports stadium, built in the '20s), to be house for an urban development, CityLife, exploiting its vicinity to the city centre. The new fair ground, in the north-western suburb of Rho, which was opened in April 2005, makes the Fiera Milano the largest trade fair complex in the world.

Milan and the future

Expo 2015 logo

Milan is undergoing an urban re-design. Construction projects are under way to rehabilitate disused industrial areas on the periphery. The schemes include the addition to the Teatro alla Scala; the CityLife project in the old "fiera" site; the new quarter Santa Giulia; and the Porta Nuova project in the Garibaldi-Repubblica zone. Many famous architects participate, such as Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Massimiliano Fuksas and Daniel Libeskind. The tasks will change the skyline of Milan, which would no longer be dominated by the Duomo and the Pirelli Tower.

Milan will host Expo 2015 as a renewed city in the wake of this modernization.

Culture

This section requires expansion.

Literature

Portrait of Alessandro Manzoni by Francesco Hayez (1841) Pinacoteca di Brera

In the late 18th century, and throughout the 19th, Milan was an important centre for intellectual discussion and literary creativity. The Enlightenment found here a fertile ground. Cesare Beccaria, with his famous Dei delitti e delle pene, and Pietro Verri, with the periodical Il Caffè were able to exert a considerable influence over the new middle-class culture, thanks also to an open-minded Austrian administration. In the first years of the nineteenth century, the ideals of the Romantic movement made their impact on the cultural life of the city and its major writers debated the primacy of Classical versus Romantic poetry. Here, too, Giuseppe Parini, and Ugo Foscolo published their most important works, and were admired by younger poets as masters of ethics, as well as of literary craftsmanship. Foscolo's poem Dei sepolcri was inspired by a Napoleonic law which—against the will of many of its inhabitants—was being extended to the city.

In the third decade of the 19th century, Alessandro Manzoni wrote his novel I Promessi Sposi, considered the manifesto of Italian Romanticism, which found in Milan its centre. The periodical Il Conciliatore published articles by Silvio Pellico, Giovanni Berchet, Ludovico di Breme, who were both Romantic in poetry and patriotic in politics.

After the Unification of Italy in 1861, Milan lost its political importance; nevertheless it retained a sort of central position in cultural debates. New ideas and movements from other countries of Europe were accepted and discussed: thus Realism and Naturalism gave birth to an Italian movement, Verismo. The greatest verista novelist, Giovanni Verga, was born in Sicily but wrote his most important books in Milan.

Fashion

Dolce & Gabbana boutique

In 2009, Milan is regarded as the world fashion capital, even beating New York, Paris, Rome and London.^[5] Most of the major Italian fashion brands, such as Valentino, Gucci, Versace, Prada and Dolce & Gabbana (to name a few), are currently headquartered in the city. Numerous international fashion labels also operate shops in Milan, including an Abercrombie & Fitch flagshp store which has become a main consumer attraction. Milan also hosts a fashion week twice a year, just like other international centres such as Paris, London, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles and Rome. Milan's main upscale shopping streets and centres are the Via Montenapoleone and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.

Media

Milan is the base of operations for many local and nationwide communication services and businesses, such as newspapers, magazines, and TV and radio stations.

Language

In addition to Italian, approximately a third of the population of western Lombardy can speak the Western Lombard language, also known as Insubric. In Milan, some natives of the city can speak the traditional Milanese language—that is to say the urban variety of Western Lombard, which is not to be confused with the Milanese-influenced regional variety of the Italian language.

Religion

Basilica of Saint Lawrence

Milan's population, like that of Italy as a whole, is overwhelmingly Catholic. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milan. Other religions practised include: Orthodox Churches,^[40] Buddhism,^[41] Judaism,^[42] Islam^[43][44] and Protestantism.^[45][46]

Milan has its own historic Catholic rite known as the Ambrosian Rite (Italian: Rito ambrosiano). It varies slightly from the typical Catholic rite (the Roman, used in all other western regions), with some differences in the liturgy and mass celebrations, and in the calendar (for example, the date for the beginning of lent is celebrated some days after the common date, so the carnival has different date). The Ambrosian rite is also practised in other surrounding locations in Lombardy and in the Swiss canton of Ticino.

Another important difference concerns the liturgical music. The Gregorian chant was completely unused in Milan and surrounding areas, because the official one was its own Ambrosian chant, definitively established by the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and earlier than the Gregorian.^[47] To preserve this music there has developed the unique schola cantorum, a college, and an Institute in partnership with the "Pontifical Ambrosian Institute of Sacred Music" (PIAMS) in Rome [2].

Cuisine

Panettone, Milanese traditional Christmas cake

Like most cities in Italy, Milan and its surrounding area has its own regional cuisine, which, as it is typical for Lombard cuisines, uses more frequently rice than pasta, and features almost no tomato. Milanese cuisine includes "cotoletta alla milanese", a breaded veal (pork and turkey can be used) cutlet pan-fried in butter (which some claim to be of Austrian origin, as it is similar to Viennese "Wienerschnitzel", while others claim that the "Wienerschnitzel" derived from the "cotoletta alla milanese"). Other typical dishes are cassoeula (stewed pork rib chops and sausage with Savoy cabbage), ossobuco (stewed veal shank with a sauce called gremolata), risotto alla milanese (with saffron and beef marrow), busecca (stewed tripe with beans), and brasato (stewed beef or pork with wine and potatoes). Season-related pastries include chiacchiere (flat fritters dusted with sugar) and tortelli (fried spherical cookies) for Carnival, colomba (glazed cake shaped as a dove) for Easter, pane dei morti ("Deads' Day bread", cookies aromatized with cinnamon) for All Soul's Day and panettone for Christmas. The salame milano, a salami with a very fine grain, is widespread throughout Italy. The best known Milanese cheese is gorgonzola from the namesake town nearby, although today the major gorgonzola producers operate in Piedmont.

Sports

San Siro Stadium, one of Europe's largest

The city hosted, among other events, the FIFA World Cup in 1934 and 1990, the UEFA European Football Championship in 1980.

Football is the most popular sport in Italy, and Milan is home to two world-famous football teams: A.C. Milan and F.C. Internazionale Milano. The former is normally referred to as "Mìlan" (notice the stress on the first syllable, unlike the English and Milanese name of the city), the latter as "Inter". A match between these two teams is known as the Milan derby or the Derby della Madonnina (in honor of one of the main sights of the city, a statue of the Virgin Mary "Madonnina" on top of the Duomo di Milano).

Milan is the only city in Europe whose teams have won both the European Cup (now UEFA Champions League) and the Intercontinental Cup (now FIFA Club World Cup). With a combined nine Champions League titles, Milan is level with Madrid for the most number of titles won by a city. Both teams play at the UEFA 5-star rated, 85,700-seated Giuseppe Meazza Stadium, more commonly known as the San Siro. The San Siro is one of the biggest stadiums in the Serie A. Inter is the only team to spend its entire history in the Serie A while Milan has spent most of their history in top-flight.

Many famous Italian football players were born in Milan, in the surrounding metropolitan area, or in Lombardy. Some famous Milan-born players include: Valentino Mazzola, Paolo Maldini, Giuseppe Meazza, Giacinto Facchetti, Luigi Riva, Gaetano Scirea, Giuseppe Bergomi, Walter Zenga, Antonio Cabrini, Roberto Donadoni, Gianluca Vialli, Silvio Piola, Gabriele Oriali and Giovanni Trapattoni as well as many others.

Monza motorsport race track, seat of the Italian Grand Prix

• The famous Monza Formula One circuit is located near the city, inside a wide park. It is one of the world's oldest car racing circuits. The capacity for the F1 races is currently around 137,000 spectators, although in the 1950s the stands could hold more than 250,000. It has hosted an F1 race nearly every year since the first year of competition, with the exception of 1980.
• Olimpia Milano (sponsored by Armani) is a successful Italian and European basketball team. It is one of the most important and successful Italian teams and also one of the top teams in Europe too. Olimpia plays at the DatchForum arena (capacity 14,000).
• Rhinos Milano American Football Club is the oldest American football club in Milan and has won four Italian Super Bowls. They are one of the five foundation clubs of the Italian Football League.
• CUS Milano Baseball is the oldest baseball club in Milan and has won eight Italian Scudetti.
• The Amatori Rugby Milano has won 18 National Championships and are the most famous and important Rugby team in Italy.
• Different ice hockey teams from Milan have won 30 National Championships between them. The Vipers Milano have won 5 of the last 7 national championships, the Alpenliga and several Coppa Italia, and are the leaders of that sport in Italy. They play at the Agora Stadium (capacity 4,500) during the regular season, and at the Forum during playoffs.
• Every year, Milan hosts the Bonfiglio Trophy Under 18 Tennis Tournament. It is the most important youth tournament in the world, and is played at the Milan Tennis Club. The central court has a capacity of 8000. Past winners include Tacchini, Jan Kodeš, Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazzutti, Moreno, Björn Borg, Smid, Ivan Lendl, Guy Forget, Jim Courier, Goran Ivanišević, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, and Guillermo Coria.
• Milan Marathon is an annual marathon race held in November in Milan.
• The city is home to the Italian Bandy Federation.^[48]

Milan and Lombardy are official candidates for the Summer Olympic Games of 2020 ("Milan-Lombardy 2020").

Education

The Politecnico di Milano main building

Milan's higher education system comprises 39 university centres (44 faculties, 174,000 new students a year, equal to 10% of the entire Italian university population),^[49] and has the largest number of university graduates and postgraduate students (34,000 and more than 5,000, respectively) in Italy.^[50]

Founded on November 29, 1863, the Politecnico di Milano is the oldest university in Milan. Its most eminent professors over the years have included the mathematician Francesco Brioschi (its first Director), Luigi Cremona, and Giulio Natta (Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963). The Politecnico di Milano is nowadays organised in 16 departments and a network of 9 Schools of Engineering, Architecture and Industrial Design spread over 7 campuses over the Lombardy region with a central administration and management. The 9 schools are devoted to education whereas the 16 departments are devoted to research. The number of students enrolled in all campuses is approximately 40,000, which makes Politecnico di Milano the largest technical university in Italy.^[51]

The University of Milan was founded on September 30, 1923 and it's a public teaching and research university, which - with 9 faculties, 58 departments, 48 institutes and a teaching staff of 2,500 professors. A leading institute in Italy and Europe for scientific productivity, the University of Milan is the largest university in the region, with approximately 65,000 enrolled students; it is also an important resource for the socio-economic context of which it is a part.^[52]

The University of Milan Bicocca was instituted on June 10, 1998 to serve students from Northern Italy and take some pressure off the historical University of Milan which was getting over-crowded. It is set on an area, called Bicocca, in the northern part of Milan which was the kernel of its past industrial activity with a lot of the largest Italian factories in steel processing, chemical manufacturing, and electro-mechanics. In the faculty of science non-traditional degrees, from B.Sc. to Ph.D., in materials science, biotechnology and environmental science are coupled to the conventional ones in physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, computation and earth science. At the present the whole University hosts more than 30,000 students.^[53]

The central building of University of Milan, built in the Renaissance as city hospital

The Luigi Bocconi Commercial University, established in 1902, has been ranked among the top 20 best business schools in the world by The Wall Street Journal international rankings, especially thanks to its M.B.A. program, which in 2007 placed it no. 17 in the world in terms of graduate recruitment preference by major multinational companies.^[54] Forbes has ranked Bocconi no.1 worldwide in the specific category Value for Money.^[55] In May 2008, Bocconi overtook several traditionally top global business schools in the Financial Times Executive education ranking, reaching no. 5 in Europe and no. 15 in the world.^[56]

The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, founded in 1921 by Father Agostino Gemelli, is currently the biggest Catholic university in the world with almost 42,000 enrolled students.^[57]

The University of Languages and Communication of Milan, founded in 1968, is specialized in consumer and services research, business communication and ICT, tourism, fashion, cultural heritage and its exploitation, foreign languages for business, economics, marketing and distribution. The two campuses of Milan and Feltre have almost 10,000 enrolled students.^[58]

The Saint Raphael University was fundamentally born as an off-spring of the research hospital structure St. Raphael Hospital, where students attend basic research laboratories in many research fields, including neurology, neurosurgery, diabetology, molecular biology, AIDS studies among others. It has expanded since then to include research fields in cognitive science and philosophy.^[59]

The Tethys Research Institute, established in 1996, is a private non-profit organization specialised in cetacean research. Tethys has generated one of the largest datasets on Mediterranean cetaceans and over 300 scientific contributions. Tethys owns photographic archives exceeding 200,000 cetacean images, that have resulted in the identification of over 1,300 individuals of seven Mediterranean species. This expertise has granted to Tethys a role as regional coordinator in the former EC-funded project “Europhlukes”.^[60]

The internal court of Brera Academy

The Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, regarded as one of the world’s leading academic institutions, is a public academic institution dedicated to teach and research within the creative art, (painting, sculpting, graphics, photo, video etc.) and cultural historical disciplines. It is the academic institution with the highest rate of internationalization in Italy with about 3,500 students including over 850 foreigners from 49 nations. In 2005 the teaching of the academy has been classified by UNESCO as "A5".

The New Academy of Fine Arts of Milan, founded in 1980, is a private academy that offers Bachelor and Master of Arts Degree Programs, Academic Master Programs, Diploma Program and Semester Abroad Programs held in English that are accredited by the US University System in the fields of Visual Arts, Graphic Design, Design, Fashion, Media Design and Theatre Design. Over 1,000 students coming from all over Italy and 40 different countries are currently studying at the academy.^[61]

The European Institute of Design is a private university specialized in fashion, industrial and interior design, audio/visual design including photography, advertising and marketing and business communication. The school was founded in 1966 today enrolls over 8,000 students.

The Marangoni Institute is a fashion institute with campuses in Milan, London, and Paris. Founded in 1935, it prepares highly skilled professionals for the fashion and design industries.

The Milan Conservatory is a college of music which was established by a royal decree of 1807. With more than 1,700 students, over 240 teachers and 20 majors, it is Italy's largest university of music.^[62]

Transportation

Milano Centrale train station main entrance

After Bologna, Milan is the second railway hub of Italy, and the five major stations of Milan, amongst which the Milan Central station, are among Italy's busiest. The first railroad built in Milan, the Milan and Monza Rail Road was opened for service on August 17, 1840.

High speed train lines are under construction all across Italy, and new lines will open from Milan to Rome and Naples in one direction, and to Turin in another.

The Azienda Trasporti Milanesi (ATM) operates within the metropolitan area, managing a public transport network consisting of three metropolitan railway lines and 120 tram, trolley-bus and bus lines. The ATM tramway fleet includes several Peter Witt cars, originally built in 1928 and still working. Overall the network covers nearly 1,400 km reaching 86 municipalities. Besides public transport, ATM manages the interchange parking lots and the on-street parking spaces in the historical centre and in the commercial zones using the SostaMilano parking card system.

Milan has three subway lines in a system called Milan Metro, with a network size of more than 80 km. It comprises three lines; the red line which runs northeast and west, the green line running northeast and southwest, and the yellow line running north and south.

Map of the Milan Metro Network. The blue line represent the Passante urban track of the Suburban Railways.

The Suburban Railway Service Lines, composed of eight suburban lines connects the Milan agglomeration to the metropolitan area. More lines were scheduled for 2008, but as of January 2009, none have been completed. The Regional Railway Service, on the other hand, links Milan with the rest of Lombardy and the national railway system. The city tram network consists of approximately 168 kilometres (104 mi) of track and 20 lines.^[63] Ninety-three bus lines cover over 1,070 km.

Milan has a taxi service operated by private companies and licensed by the City of Milan (Comune di Milano). All taxis are the same color, white. Prices are based on a set fare at the beginning and an additional fare based on time elapsed and distance traveled. The number of licences is kept low by lobbying of present taxi drivers. Finding a taxi may be difficult in rush hours or rainy days, and almost impossible during public transportation strikes, which occur often.

The city of Milan is served by three international airports. The Malpensa International Airport, the second biggest airport in Italy, is about 50 km from central Milan and connected to downtown with the "Malpensa Express" railway service. It handled over 23.8 million passengers in 2007. The Linate Airport, which is near the city limits, is mainly used for domestic and short-haul international flights, with over 9 million passengers in 2007. The airport of Orio al Serio, near to the city of Bergamo, serves the low-cost traffic of Milan (almost 6 million passengers in 2007).

International relations

Twin towns — Sister cities

Milan is twinned with:^[64]

Other forms of cooperation, partnership and city friendship:

See also

• Lombardy
• List of mayors of Milan
• List of rulers of Milan
• Milan metropolitan area
• Province of Milan

Notes

References

• The decline and fall of the Roman Empire (Edward Gibbon)
• The later Roman empire (Jones), Blackwell and Mott, Oxford
• Milano romana / Mario Mirabella Roberti (Rusconi publisher) 1984
• Marchesi, i percorsi della Storia Minerva Italica (It)
• Acts of international convention "Milan Capital"), Convegno archeologico internazionale Milano

capitale dell'impero romano 1990; Milano Altri autori: Sena Chiesa, Gemma Arslan, Ermanno A.

• Milano tra l'eta repubblicana e l'eta augustea: atti del Convegno di studi, 26-27 marzo 1999, Milano
• Milano capitale dell'impero romano: 286-402 d.c. – (Milano) : Silvana, (1990). – 533 p.: ill. ; 28 cm.
• Milano capitale dell'Impero romano: 286-402 d.c. - album storico archeologico. – Milano: Cariplo: ET, 1991. – 111 p.: ill.; 47 cm. (Pubbl. in occasione della Mostra tenuta a Milano nel) 1990.
• Agostino a Milano: il battesimo - Agostino nelle terre di Ambrogio: 22-24 aprile 1987 / (relazioni di) Marta Sordi (et al.) Augustinus publ.
• Anselmo, Conte di Rosate: istoria milanese al tempo del Barbarossa / Pietro Beneventi, Europia publ.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Milano

• ATM - Milan's Transportation Company
• City of Milan - official Virtual Tour website
• City of Milan - official website
• (Italian) Rete Metropolitana di Milano
• Milan travel guide from Wikitravel
• The Milan Garden of the Righteous

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