MILAN, mil'an or mi-1an' (It. Milano, Lat. ilicdio/anani). The second largest city in Italy, the chief city in Lombardy. and the capital of the Province of Milan. It is situated in the great plain of Lombardy. 360 feet above the sea, on the little river (Ilona, an allluent of the Po, 93 miles northeast of Turin and 166 miles west of Venice; latitude 45° 2S' N., longi tude 11' E. (Map: Italy, D 2). The climate is rather changeable and trying. It is ex tremely hot in summer and quite cold in win ter, the winds from the frozen Alps sweeping across the Lombardy plain. The thermometer at times drops below- zero. The mean annual tem perature is 55.4° F.; rainfall, 39.37 inches.
Milan is a fairly symmetrical polygon in shape, the circuit of its customs district being now nearly twenty miles. Its focus is the splen did Mazzo del Duomo (Cathedral Square), from which broad avenues and electric rail ways radiate in all direction:. These radials are connected by an inner circle of mod ernized streets just outside the canal that marks the location of the ancient moat and of the inner and most ancient city. An additional connection is furnished by a splendid boulevard, and by a belt electric railway seven miles long beyond the sixteenth-eentury walls that arc pierced by a dozen gates, and are now planted with trees and used as a promenade. commanding the view of the suburbs. The most magnificent of the radials is the modern Via Dante. leading from the handsome Piazza de' Mereanti to the spacious Foro Bonaparte, and thence to the New Park, which \Vas formerly a part of a national drill-ground. This park is paved with wooden blocks on a concrete foundation, and on each side, next to the front foundation walls of the houses, has large subways containing water and gas pipes, electric wires, etc. It is beautified by a large pond and spacious promenades, and is faced by the Castello, and also by the Aufiteatro dell' Arena, which was constructed by Napoleon 1. for races and is capable of seating 30,000 persons. The park is lighted by electricity at night. Adorning the northeastern section of the city are the splendid Giardini PubbBei, surpassed by few gardens on the Continent. The Corso Vittorio Emanuele is one of the most elegant shopping streets in Italy, and the centre of frailly in Milan.
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, connecting the Piazza del Duomo with the Piazza della Seala, is a splendid glass-covered arcade, with shops, designed by one of Milan's distinguished archi teets. Mengoni. It is in the form of a Latin cross, with a cupola 180 feet in height.
Architeeture is superbly represented in Milan, nearly all styles being displayed in rare ex amples. Bramante dwelt here many years, and left his genius impressed on more than one fine mommient. The city is particularly famous for fine churches. Of these the principal is the world-renowned Gothic; cathedral, one of the finest of ecclesiastical structures. ranking with Saint Peter's at Rome and the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence. The vast church has an exterior of white Carrara marble. which is adorned by OS pinnacles and with more than 2000 statues, besides a variety of carvings of unsurpassable beauty. In form it is a Latin cross, with a length of 4S6 and a breadth of 281 feet. The height of the tower is 356 feet. Its foundation was laid in 1386 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and during its erection many of the greatest European architects contributed designs for its embellishment. Within it Napoleon was crowned King of Italy in 1805. The view' of the Alps, Lombardy, and the city from the top of the cathedral is celebrated. The quaint medieval ('hutch of Sant' Ambrogio, erected on the site of a church founded by Saint Ambrose in the fourth century, possesses inscriptions, sarco phagi, and monuments full of antiquarian in terest, and is historic as the place where the German emperors were crowned kings of Italy. There are also the Dominican Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which contains in its refec tory the now almost obliterated picture of the "Last Slipper," by Leonardo da Vinci; the Church of San Carlo Borromco (1847) ; and San Nazar°. which possesses a masterful fresco by Lanino, and also San Sebastiano, once a Ro man temple. The Church of San Satiro has a beautiful sacristy—a creation of Bramante. The mural paintings of Litini in the ('lurch of San Giorgio al Palazzo are visited by all art lovers. San Lorenzo Is an important church, and is in addition the oldest one in the city, tracing its history back to Roman times.