If you walk from Cordusio toward Via Torino through Piazza San Sepolcro, you’re walking right over an entire church. It’s three meters below, and it’s been there for nearly a thousand years.
It is open every day except Wednesday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with an admission fee of €8. This week, however, there are two additional opportunities. On Saturday, October 31, there is a guided tour by lantern light, and on Sunday, November 1, an evening opening with a single ticket for €3 granting access to both the Crypt and the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana.
A mint master, a crusade, and a name changed in 1100
Benedetto Rozzone, master of the Milanese mint, commissioned this underground church. He built it as a private church and dedicated it to the Holy Trinity.
On July 15, 1100, after the capture of Jerusalem, Archbishop Anselmo IV da Bovisio renamed it “del Santo Sepolcro.”
A wagon track and a fossil: the Roman remains in Milan that you walk on
Among Milan’s historic underground sites, the Crypt of San Sepolcro has a unique feature: you don’t view the Roman stones through a glass case—you walk right on them. They are white stone slabs from Verona that were part of the forum’s paving in the 4th century.
Look down: on one slab, you can still see the groove left by a cartwheel; on another, an ammonite fossil.
Then look up at the vaults, where you’ll see a starry sky decorated with rosettes, restored in 2019.
In the side niches, be sure to look for the “Palm of the Earthly Paradise,” a copper sculpture from 1616.
“The true center of Milan”: why Leonardo and San Carlo considered it the heart of the city
In the Codex Atlanticus, housed just a few meters from here at the Ambrosiana Library, there is a map of the city drawn by Leonardo.
On that map, San Sepolcro is marked with a small square and indicated as the center of Milan. It wasn’t a poetic intuition: right here, fifteen centuries earlier, stood the main square of Mediolanum.
It’s one of those fascinating facts about Milan that surprises even those who were born there.
Then, for over fifty years, this corner of underground Milan remained closed. It reopened on March 19, 2016.
Hours, tickets, and lantern-lit tours: how to descend into the crypt
The Crypt of San Sepolcro is managed by the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana and is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with the ticket office closing at 5:15 p.m.; it is closed on Wednesdays. Full-price tickets cost €8, and reduced-price tickets start at €2.50.
The combined ticket with the Pinacoteca, which houses Caravaggio’s *Basket of Fruit*, costs €20, plus €1.50 if you book online.
Allow half an hour for the crypt and about two hours for both sites. Please note: the site is not accessible to wheelchair users or people with limited mobility.
If you’d rather see it at night, just as St. Charles used to spend his nights there, lantern-lit tours are held on October 31, November 28, and December 30 at 7:15 p.m. Tickets start at €19.50.
