The City

The City, as we see it, today began as a Gallic settlement which, after the Roman conquest, was replaced by a Roman camp with a square plan. In 300 B.C. “Mediolanum” was a flourishing city with 300.000 inhabitants, capital of the Western Empire from Diocletian to the 6th Century. In the 13th Century it was destroyed by Barbarossa and rebuilt without a precise criteria, but the most important roads converged towards the centre. Notwithstanding the changing political events, the importance of this City grew more and more thanks to its favourable geographical position as a centre for exchange and commerce. Today the plan of Milan is characterized by three circles: the first one is the circle of the

Navigli, which surrounded the City during the Middle Age; the 17th-Century circle of the Spanish bastions and finally the 19th-Century ring-road, which imitates the Parisien “boulevards”.