10 legends about Milan you should discover
Every important city has stories and legends that for centuries have conferred an air of decay about it. Think about New York and the alligators living in the sewers. Milan, for instance, is not short in the legends department.
The coolest Italian city boast tons of metropolitan legends that doesn’t cut a poor figure with no cities of the world. We have chosen 10 for you in the balance between fantasy, reality and irony. Take advantage to have a stroll by feet or by bike around the “Madonnina” city.
1. Parco Vetra or Basilicas Park because it connects the major Basilica of San Lorenzo and the Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio. Where today there is a lovely and lively green area, once witches and heretics were burned. That’s why it is still infested by ghosts.
2. Legend has it that the old town center of Milan has Celtic origins and was located between Piazza Meda and La Scala, the legendary opera house in Milan. This story is linked to Milan very old origins. It was founded by a Celtic tribe indeed, the Insubri.
3. It is said that there is a palace in via San Gregorio where at the beginning of the Twentieth Century a terrible tragedy took place. According to legend, a mother killed her 7 children. During some nights it would be possible to hear the voices of the unlucky babies.
4. This one is a little bit funnier, fortunately. It is said that in Milan you can find Italy’s freshest fish in spite of the lack of the sea. Crazy but true? The proof of the pudding is in the eating!
5. In The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the world’s oldest shopping malls, housed within a four-story double arcade in central Milan, and named after the first king of the Kingdom of Italy, if you squeeze bull’s balls and swivel around, you will become successful. Let’s try!
6. The Duomo, gothic masterpiece, as well as Italy’s largest church (apart from St. Peter’s Basilica), it is said to have its own ghost. It seems it is named Carlina, a mysterious bride that threw herself from the upper part of the Duomo for the guilt of a betrayal.
7. According to another legend, who passes through lions at the entrance of renowned Bocconi University, won’t take a degree anymore. The most superstitious ones avoid passing there also after the graduation.
8. Another famous ghost is the one of Bernardina Visconti, starved by her father inside one of the the towers supporting the arcades of Porta Nuova, the main business district of Milan. The towers are no longer there, but there are rumors that the ghost of the lady in medieval clothes wanders searching for the peace she didn’t achieved during her life.
9. Here we are at the serial killer street, “the stretta Bagnera”, a super narrow street set of the murders of Europe’s first serial killer, Antonio Boggia. He acted 30 years before his very famous colleague Jack the Ripper and then accused of about ten homicides in ten years. He was hanged in 1862.
10. Last and most romantic one. It is said that kissing each other on Ponte delle Sirene at the Sempione park, one of most famous parks of Milan, prevents betrayals forever. Take there your sweetheart as soon as possible!
