Santa Maria delle Grazie, Renaissance church in Milan, Italy.
Santa Maria delle Grazie is a church in Milan built during the Renaissance, blending Gothic elements with Renaissance forms. The building features a Gothic choir with an octagonal dome above the altar area, while the nave maintains traditional Gothic proportions.
The first stone of the convent was laid on 10 September 1463; Guiniforte Solari designed the Gothic nave, completed by 1469. In 1492 Ludovico il Moro had the newly built choir demolished and a tribune begun as a family mausoleum, blessed on 29 March 1492. Its design is traditionally attributed to Donato Bramante, though Giovanni Antonio Amadeo likely directed the works.
The name refers to a small chapel dedicated to the Madonna delle Grazie that stood here before the Dominicans arrived; the friars received the land in 1460 from Count Gaspare Vimercati. The old sacristy, built by Bramante, now houses the Centro Culturale alle Grazie, which hosts conferences on spirituality, philosophy, art and literature, plus concerts and exhibitions.
Access to the refectory requires advance booking with assigned time slots, and groups are limited to 30 people per session. Visitors should be flexible and allow extra time for queues, especially during peak tourist seasons.
On the night of 15 August 1943 an Allied air raid hit the church and convent: much of the refectory collapsed, yet the wall carrying Leonardo's Last Supper survived because it had been sandbagged. The painting's surface had already suffered from centuries of restorations; the campaign begun in 1978 and finished in 1999 removed those layers and addressed dust, fumes and humidity.
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