The church of San Sebastiano is one of the most interesting in the city. It’s situated not far from the Duomo, in the Via Torino street, and it’s not a tourist spot. I’ll confess to you: Even many Milanese don’t know anything about it, even though they’ve seen that building since they were children.

It’s a small church dedicated to Saint Sebastian, which has a really particular structure because it’s a circular church. Basically, it has the same structure as some Roman-greek circular temples, which were called in ancient Greek “tholos”. It was founded in 1576 by the architect Pellegrino Tibaldi under the orders of the cardinal Borromeo.

This man of Church is well known by Italians, and above all Milanese because he’s a character in the famous romance The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni, the city’s most famous writer. Why was it built? In Milan, which in that period was under Spanish control, the plague arrived that had killed a large amount of people in Europe. So the Spanish government, with Borromeo’s suggestion, decided to build that church in order to try to limit the plague. As we know from the romance of Alessandro Manzoni, everything against that plague was useless. By the way, the church that remained is one of my favourite spots in the city.