Rotonda della Besana

This guide to Rotonda della Besana in Milan traces the flower-shaped courtyard back to 1695, when it opened as a burial ground for the poorest patients of the Ospedale Maggiore, the Ca' Granda charity hospital. You'll hear how a maze of catacombs grew beneath the site over the next century, until Austrian officials outlawed burials inside the city walls in 1787 and the gate below was sealed. The guide also follows a grander plan from 1808, when Napoleon's viceroy dreamed of turning the rotunda into a Milanese Pantheon modeled on the one in Paris, with architects sketching a monument crowded with the tombs of the great and famous. Stand in the garden and look toward the brick church at its center.