Milano, Piazza San Babila

Piazza San Babila is to be found where once there was a group of "five churches and little churches" and in the point where the Seveso river, coming from its moorland source, flowed into the circuit of the Massimianean walls. The piazza represents an important convergence of the city's main roads. Its actual configuration is the result and the manifestation of town-planning programmes from the Thirties. The possibilities for joining up Corso del Littorio with Corso Venezia formed a key issue in the competition for the 1926-27 town-planning scheme. The "Milanese planners" limited their ideas by merely linking up the two main roads with a wide curve. The winning project (Portaluppi-Semenza), however, suggested the opening of a piazza which in a consequent proposal proved to be of unusual measurements (210 metres x 70 metres). Its implementation, fortunately with different measurements, began in 1938.
On the corner of Corso Matteotti is to be found the Palazzo del Toro, which includes the Teatro Nuovo and the Galleria del Toro. A huge porticoed block demarcates the eastern side of the piazza, stretching to the right as far as Via Cino del Duca, and enclosing Piazza Giordano at the back. At the corner of Corso Monforte and Corso Venezia is the Basilica di San Babila, preceded by the Colonna del Leone by G. Robecco (1626), displaying the ancient banner of the Porta Orientale district. Following destruction caused by the war, Piazza San Babila was enlarged on its southern side with Largo Toscanini.