Piazza del Duomo

This guide to Piazza del Duomo in Milan opens on December 30, 1877, four days before the grand opening of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, when architect Giuseppe Mengoni climbed the scaffolding around his triumphal arch for one last look before the ribbon cutting. You'll hear about the twelve years he spent tearing down the square's old clutter and reshaping it into the piazza framed by matching palaces you see today. It follows what Milan never fully agreed on afterward, and what arrived at the square's center nineteen years later.