Lodi, Ex-monastery of San Cristoforo

A church dedicated to St. Christopher existed in Lodi from 1150-1200 and belonged to the order of the Umiliati: in particular it was called St. Christoforus of Laude and we presume that it was located at the same place where the current church has been built.
In 1522 the Prior of the Cenoby of the Olivetani of Villanova at Sillaro, with the intention of founding a new congregation, acquired the church and the monastery of St. Cristopher from the Umiliati and decided to rebuild it.
The project was awarded to the architect Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527 - 1596), a protégé of St. Charles Borromeo, for whom he had worked on the Duomo at Milan.
On 24 Februrary 1564 the first stone of the new church was laid, and the church was finished and blessed in 1586.
The monastery was begun the following year, in 1587: Tibaldi was not asked again, but Master Pietro Piantanida, engineer, was named as director of works and the gentlemen Andrea, Giacomo and Gianni of Specy as builders. Historians guess that Pellegrino Tibaldi was now limited to providing supplies to the project and had nothing to do with its realisation. The building work for the monastery lasted about ten years.
The monastery is organised on two floors and has a courtyard with columns. The columns are in granite, and elegant in the long module, standing on a high base and supporting arcades with round arches. The arches are marked out by thin profiles which are taken up as a string course all along the perimeter of the portico. The oldest part is the part opposite the side with the entrance which is complete, with a raised central body and a portico along the sides. This space receives light from oculus windows placed in the upper part and a large glass door at the head. Along the walls of the salon covered transverse spaces open out, perhaps originally dormitories, the present dividing walls being later additions. The ex-monastery is today the prestigious seat of the Province of Lodi.