San Carlo al Lazzaretto, Milan: A Mannerist Church at the Former Lazzaretto
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Milan, Spanish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page7 sections
History
San Carlo al Lazzaretto is a Catholic church in Italy, built in the late sixteenth century in the Mannerist period and dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo. It belongs to the Ambrosian rite, the Catholic liturgical tradition of the Archdiocese of Milan, and is a subsidiary church of the parish of Santa Francesca Romana. The building originally stood at the centre of Milan’s fifteenth-century Lazzaretto, a facility for isolating and caring for people affected by epidemic diseases.
The Lazzaretto and the plague of 1576
The Lazzaretto was established outside Milan’s walls near Porta Orientale as a large rectangular complex with covered porticos surrounding an open central area. Designed by Lazzaro Palazzi in the late fifteenth century, it measured approximately 400 yards on each side and occupied land now bounded by Via San Gregorio, Via Lazzaretto, Viale Vittorio Veneto, and Corso Buenos Aires.
An altar was first placed in the centre of the complex so that patients could see and hear religious services from the surrounding porticos. After the plague epidemic of 1576, Carlo Borromeo, archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584, commissioned Pellegrino Tibaldi to replace the altar with a permanent church. The present building belongs to this late-sixteenth-century rebuilding campaign.
Civic devotion and later secular use
From 1582, San Carlo al Lazzaretto became the destination of an annual civic procession commemorating those who had died in the plague. Held on Whit Monday, the procession began at Milan Cathedral and included the cathedral clergy and the people of Milan. It ended after the French occupation.
The church continued to serve the Lazzaretto throughout the seventeenth century. After the French conquest of the Duchy of Milan in 1797, the complex was converted to military use and later functioned as barracks. During the Cisalpine Republic, a French-backed state in northern Italy that existed from 1797 to 1802, Giuseppe Piermarini was commissioned to transform the church into a secular Temple of the Nation. The project removed the original dome and enclosed the sides with walls, but the proposed patriotic conversion was never completed.
Urban transformation and restoration
During the nineteenth century, the former Lazzaretto grounds were used for agriculture and private housing, while peasants and merchants occupied the surrounding cloister. After the Banca di Credito Italiano acquired the property, it chose to demolish and subdivide the area. The church survived, received a reconstructed dome, and reopened for worship in 1884 under its present dedication. Rooms added on its north side at the end of the century served as a sacristy and priest’s residence.
The building was previously known as the Little Temple of Saint Mary of Health and as San Carlino. The late-nineteenth-century demolition of the Lazzaretto, followed by the construction of dense nineteenth- and twentieth-century apartment blocks, transformed its original setting almost entirely. San Carlo al Lazzaretto also provides the setting for a scene at the end of Alessandro Manzoni’s historical novel The Betrothed, which is set partly in seventeenth-century Lombardy.
Vibrations from the railway line beneath Viale Tunisia damaged the dome and prompted engineering studies to reinforce the structure. After a public fundraising attempt failed, the church underwent complete restoration financed by the Fondazione Rocca in memory of Roberto Rocca. Work began in September 2015 and ended in June 2017. The project supported both worship and use as a concert hall, and the restored church was inaugurated by Milan’s Archbishop Mario Delpini on 3 November 2017.
Remains
The octagonal central plan
San Carlo al Lazzaretto is a small, centrally planned octagonal building. Its original open sides allowed people in the surrounding Lazzaretto porticos to follow services from outside. Each side is formed by a Serlian opening, a central arch flanked by lower side openings, supported by stone Ionic columns. These openings are now walled. Inside, a smaller ring of columns and piers supports the dome and lantern, repeating the exterior organization. Circular oculi pierce each side of the dome and lantern.
Alterations and interior adaptation
Piermarini’s late-eighteenth-century intervention removed the original dome and enclosed the external openings. The dome was reconstructed during the nineteenth-century restoration, and a portico was added to the façade before the church reopened in 1884. During the 2015 to 2017 restoration, the former sacristy and priest’s residence were adapted as changing rooms, bathrooms, a rehearsal room, and accommodation for concert performers. The side altars were removed, and the central altar was moved towards the wall to create additional space for concerts.
A new organ with 1,800 pipes was installed during the same restoration. Designed by Martino Lurani Cernuschi, it has a romantic-symphonic specification. The church now stands at Largo Bellintani Fra Paolo 1, between Via Lazzaro Palazzi and Viale Tunisia, amid later apartment blocks. In 2016, the surrounding Largo Bellintani was pedestrianized between Via Lecco and Viale Tunisia, while vehicle traffic remained possible along Via Palazzi.
