The Columns of San Lorenzo

In front of you stands the oldest image of Milan still upright in the open air: sixteen marble columns about seven and a half metres tall, topped with Corinthian capitals. Trams brush past them as if they were just another piece of street furniture.

1When Milan was a capital

At the end of the 3rd century, Emperor Maximian chose Mediolanum as his residence. For more than a hundred years the city was the imperial seat of the West, with a palace, a circus, baths and a new city wall. In 313, Constantine and Licinius agreed in Milan on the policy of religious tolerance we call the Edict of Milan. That is why a bronze statue of Constantine waits for you on the square: a modern copy (1937) of an ancient original kept in Rome.

2Recycled columns

These columns were not carved for this spot. They come from a Roman building of the 2nd or 3rd century, probably a temple, and were brought here to complete the complex of the basilica of San Lorenzo, one of the city's great early Christian churches. Their present arrangement is medieval, from the 11th and 12th centuries. For centuries, humble houses were crammed between the columns and the church; they were only cleared in 1935.

Milan recycled its Roman past just as it recycles this square today: without asking permission.

3What to look for

• The worn shafts, scarred and patched by almost two millennia.
• The statue of Constantine, recalling the Edict of 313.
• The dome of San Lorenzo, behind, rebuilt in the 16th century on the ancient plan.