Duomo di Milano

The Duomo di Santa Maria Nascente is the cathedral of Milano, Italy and the third largest church in the world. It dates back to 1386 and is the building with the most marble used world-wide. It contains 3500 sculptures and 35000 worshippers can attend a religious service here.

“What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and yet it seems …a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!… The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures– and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex, that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest…everywhere that a niche or a perch can be found about the enormous building, from summit to base, there is a marble statue, and every statue is a study in itself…Away above, on the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring high in the air, and through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond.”

– Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad

Duomo di Milano
Piazza del Duomo
Milano, Italy