Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

The area was once crossed by the waters of a smelly ditch due to the many tanners' shops (called, precisely, Vetraschi) which fed into the nearby Seveso canal; it was a traditionally very busy area of ​​the city and also the site of burnings, hangings and public tortures.

The valorisation of the space behind San Lorenzo began in 1925 with a variant of the building master plan and in the post-war period, driven by the new master plan of 1953, the idea was born of assigning the area to public greenery with the connotation of an "archaeological walk ” as it would have united the apses of the two basilicas.

In 1956, through the Horticultural Association, the design task was given to the two architects Bagatti Valsecchi and Grandi. In fact, their project, which involved burying the car passage on Via Molino delle Armi and the construction of an artificial lake in memory of the presence of water in the area, was never completely completed.

The redevelopment project carried out on the occasion of the Jubilee of 2000 provided the park with an external fence. One of the results of the project is the greater prominence given by the relationship between the apse of the basilicas and the surrounding greenery.

The two parts, separated by via Molino delle Armi, were joined by a main path highlighted by elm specimens and embellished with a wide band of roses, which runs longitudinally through the entire park and constitutes its backbone.

The result of the redesign of the southern area is a garden with a more rigid design where the relationship between the greenery and the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio is underlined; through the elimination of all the pedestrian paths that fragmented the greenery without functionality, two geometrically regular lawns were created.

The area has been enriched by numerous benches and a renewed lighting system.

Basilica of San Lorenzo, a building from the early Christian era (500th century), the only example of a Byzantine church in Milan remodeled and redecorated in the XNUMXth century; Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio, from the Romanesque period (XNUMXth century); statue dedicated to San Lazzaro, resting on a stone base, an example of late Baroque art in memory of the place where public hangings were held.

Main tree species

• maple (Acer negundo, A.platanoides, A. saccharinum)
• hornbeam (Carpinus betulus)
• flowering cherry (Prunus cerasifera 'Pissardii')
• beech (Fagus sylvatica)
• English oak (Quercus robur)
• elm (Ulmus spp)
• black pine (Pinus nigra)
• Cypress poplar (Populus nigra 'Italica')
• plane tree (Platanus x acerifolia)
• sophora (Sophora japonica)

Of notable interest is a group of mulberry trees at the entrance from via Molino delle Armi and, a little further on, a very rare specimen of Celtis Orientalis.

Among the shrubby species are patches of wrinkled roses and autumn berries.

Arrival

• October to April: 6am to 30pm 
• from May to September 6am-30pm