While strikingly grand as viewed from the sea, and so far worthy of being entitled “Genoa the Superb,” is in reality built awkwardly on irregular rising ground, and consists of a labyrinth of narrow and intricate lanes. Of the palaces the most famous are the former palace of the doges, now the meeting-place of the senate; and the Doria, presented in 1529 to the great Genoese citizen Andrea Doria. Foremost among the churches stands the Cathedral, a grand twelfth-century pile in the Italian Gothic style. The marble Municipal Palace and the palace of the Dogana must also be mentioned.
To Columbus and Mazzini, Genoa’s most famous sons, there are fine monuments.
It is the commercial outlet for a wide extent of country, of which the chief exports are rice, wine, olive-oil, silk goods, coral, paper, macaroni and marble. The principal industrial establishments of the city embrace ironworks, cotton and cloth mills, macaroni-works, tanneries, sugar-refineries, and vesta-match, filigree, and paper factories. Genoa benefited greatly by the opening of the St. Gothard Railway.
Milan (me-lan´, mil´an. Ital. Milano, mee-lah´no), the capital of Lombardy, is one of the largest and wealthiest cities of Italy. It was an important town under the Romans, was sacked by Attila in 452, totally destroyed by Frederic Barbarossa in 1162, and has figured prominently in more recent history.
The city, nearly circular in shape, is surrounded on three sides by walls, has a circuit of nearly eight miles, and is entered by fourteen gates.
Of the numerous churches the magnificent Gothic Cathedral is the most famous. It is second only to St. Peter’s and Seville Cathedrals in size and was built principally during the period 1386-1500. After many delays and interruptions, work was resumed under Napoleon I. in 1805, but is not yet fully completed. The façade has recently been restored. It is cruciform, with double aisles and transept-aisles, separated by fifty-two pillars, each twelve feet in diameter, with niches crowded with statues. Interior four hundred and seventy-seven feet long, one hundred and eighty-three feet wide and one hundred and fifty-five feet high. It contains six thousand statues, a pavement of marble mosaic, vast granite monoliths, superb stained windows, many tombs of magnates, St. Carlo Borromeo’s wooden crucifix and gorgeous tomb, and life-size silver statues of saints. The wonderful marble roof is studded with ninety-eight Gothic turrets, hundreds of pinnacles, and over two thousand life-size marble statues.
Of the other churches S. Maria delle Grazie (fifteenth century), partly the work of Bremante, was originally an abbey church, and the refectory in the rear contains Leonardo da Vinci’s celebrated fresco of the Last Supper, which, in 1909, was successfully restored.
The Brera Palace (twelfth century), formerly a Jesuit college, has now a great gallery of paintings by Raphael, Da Vinci, Luini, Mantegna, the Bellinis, Titian, Vandyck, and others, an academy of art, a collection of casts, the magnificent monument of Gaston de Foix, the National Library, an archaeological museum, and an observatory.
The colonnade of Victor Emmanuel Gallery is the finest arcade in the world, and was built in 1865-1867 at a cost of one million six hundred thousand dollars. It is nine hundred and sixty feet long, forty-eight feet wide, ninety-four feet high, surrounded by handsome shops, richly frescoed, and adorned with statues of Raphael, Galileo, Dante, Cavour, and twenty other famous Italians. The octagon under the dome (one hundred and eighty feet high) is brilliantly lighted at night, when it forms a favorite promenade.
On the adjacent Piazza della Scala is Leonardo da Vinci’s monument, and the massive Municipal Palace. The Arch of Peace, built of white marble, commemorates the exploits of Napoleon. The Della Scala Opera House is the second in size (after San Carlo at Naples) in Italy; and the Milan conservatoire is the most famous school of music in Europe.