Basilica di San Calimero: An Early Christian Church in Milan
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Milan, Italian
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Basilica
On this page10 sections
History
Basilica di San Calimero is a Catholic church in Milan, Italy, whose foundation belongs to the city’s early Christian period and is generally dated to the fifth century. Built on the site of a Roman temple dedicated to Apollo, it follows the Ambrosian rite and is dedicated to Saint Calimerius, an early bishop of Milan who died around AD 190. The church existed by at least AD 490, when Bishop Lorenzo I of Milan commissioned its restoration.
From Roman temple to Christian basilica
The church developed during the campaign associated with Saint Ambrose, the influential fourth-century bishop of Milan who opposed pagan and Arian religious practices. In this period, the Apollo temple was converted for Christian worship, while other pagan temples were demolished and Christian churches and basilicas were built. A longstanding legend gives the site a more specific sacred origin. It says that Calimerius was martyred and that his body was thrown into a well, where his bones were later found immersed in water. A basilica was then erected at the place and dedicated to him.
The water in the crypt’s well was once regarded as miraculous against drought and disease. The association with Calimerius remains central to the church’s history, particularly through the tomb-altar connected with the saint. His bones were transferred there in 1609 on the orders of Federigo Borromeo, cardinal and archbishop of Milan, and an inscription on the rear of the altar records the act.
Early modern and modern transformations
Francesco Maria Richini carried out a restoration in the seventeenth century. The basilica was consecrated in 1776, while its main altar received a separate consecration in 1822. In 1882, Angelo Colla undertook an almost complete rebuilding or restoration intended to recover the church’s presumed medieval forms. This intervention removed most of the appearance created under Richini and established the building’s present character.
Today, Basilica di San Calimero is recognized as one of Milan’s early Christian basilicas and is designated an Italian cultural property. Its current appearance combines the memory of the early Christian foundation with a nineteenth-century Neo-Romanesque reconstruction and medievalizing interior decoration.
Remains
Neo-Romanesque building and decoration
The present basilica has a Neo-Romanesque, or Romanesque Revival, design. Its interior is deliberately modest and minimalist while retaining an elegant and dignified character. Painted decoration includes Pre-Raphaelite elements, alongside frescoes and works from earlier periods that survived or were incorporated into the later church.
Terracotta facade
The terracotta facade has a gabled front crowned by three polygonal pinnacles, each ending in a wrought-iron cross. Three large single-lancet windows are placed above three portals with mosaic lunettes. The central entrance is preceded by a nineteenth-century porch supported on columns, whose vaulted ceiling carries a mosaic of a starry sky. The lunette over the principal portal represents Saint Calimerius and identifies him as the fourth bishop of Milan.
Interior artworks
The surviving decoration includes sixteenth-century frescoes by Giovanni Mauro della Rovere and a vaulted crypt frescoed by the Fiammenghini, a family of Milanese painters associated especially with fresco work. A small fifteenth-century fresco of the Madonna between two female saints appears on the right side of the apse basin and is attributed to Cristoforo Moretti. The adjoining sacristy contains further medieval frescoes, while other frescoes are by Augusto Lozzia.
The church also contains a seventeenth-century Crucifixion by an anonymous Lombard painter, once attributed to Il Cerano, the artistic name of Giovanni Battista Crespi. A Nativity is associated with Marco d’Oggiono, a Lombard Renaissance painter connected with Leonardo da Vinci’s circle, although the attribution is uncertain or former. Recent overpainting has made parts of the work illegible.
Crypt and furnishings
Saint Calimerius’s tomb-altar and well
The sixteenth-century crypt is the principal surviving part of the older church. It contains the tomb-altar associated with Saint Calimerius, whose bones were placed there in 1609. A functioning well stands in the right nave of the crypt at the place associated with the discovery of the saint’s bones in water. The crypt’s frescoed vault was painted by the Fiammenghini, linking the sacred space to the artistic renewal of the sixteenth century.
Altars and organ
The neoclassical high altar has a circular ciborium, an architectural canopy over an altar, supported by Corinthian columns. The altar of Saint Arialdo of Carimate incorporates a bas-relief depicting Saint Erlembald Cotta. On the choir gallery to the left of the presbytery, behind a trifora, an opening divided into three parts and supported by small columns, is a pipe organ built by Giuseppe Bernasconi in 1884. The instrument was restored by the Mascioni firm in 2014.
