San Bernardino alle Ossa Church in Milan
San Bernardino alle Ossa Church is perhaps the strangest and most somber church in Milan. As its name suggests (alle ossa), its interior is decorated with the bones and skulls of people who died several centuries ago. If you are interested in more unusual places, add it to your list of attractions to visit in Milan.
Visiting Hours
San Bernardino alle Ossa Church can be visited during the following hours:
- Monday to Friday: 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM
- Saturday: 9:30 AM - 6:00 PM
- Sunday: 9:30 AM -12:00 PM
Attention! On Sundays, only the church can be visited, the ossuary is closed!
San Bernardino alle Ossa Church is located in Piazza Santo Stefano, to the left of the Santo Stefano Maggiore Basilica, just a 10-minute walk from the Milan Cathedral.
Tickets
Access to San Bernardino alle Ossa Church is free (read more about what you can see for free in Milan). Those who wish can leave a small donation for the maintenance of the church.
Visit to San Bernardino alle Ossa
The San Bernardino alle Ossa complex consists of a church and an ossuary, whose origins date back to the 13th century.
Around 1145, there was a cemetery in this area where those who died in the nearby San Barnaba in Brolo hospital were buried. Later, in 1210, when the burial space proved insufficient, a construction was erected at the end of the cemetery to collect the exhumed bones. In 1268, a small church was built next to this ossuary, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Saint Sebastian, and Saint Ambrose. After the expansion works from 1340, a new patron was added: Saint Bernardino of Siena.
In 1642, the bell tower of Santo Stefano Church, which was in front of the ossuary, collapsed, destroying both the ossuary and the small church, which was immediately rebuilt. The reconstruction of the ossuary took several years, being completed only in 1695. The vault of the new building was adorned with frescoes by the famous Baroque painter Sebastiano Ricci, originally from Veneto. The painting depicts souls ascending to paradise, surrounded by angels. In the tympanums, the four protective saints are represented: the Virgin Mary, Saint Ambrose, Saint Sebastian, and Saint Bernardino.
Above the marble altar, there is a representation of the Virgin Mary kneeling beside the body of Jesus. The work was created in the mid-18th century, during the Spanish domination, resembling the Madonnas from Spanish churches.
However, we are sure that neither this nor the painting on the vault will be what immediately catches your attention, but rather the hundreds of skulls and bones crammed into the niches in the walls of the ossuary chapel. Upon closer inspection, you will notice that even the pilasters between the niches and the cornices at the base of the dome are decorated with skulls, creating a strange, somber, and daunting image.
The skulls from the old ossuary (the one destroyed due to the collapse of the bell tower in 1642) were placed here, as well as bones exhumed later from cemeteries that were closed after the hospital was shut down in 1652. Most of them are the remains of poor people who died of natural causes. On the wall opposite to the altar, there are skulls of criminals who were executed by beheading. There are also those who died in prisons, for whom no place was found in cemeteries, or even nobles who were buried near the churches from nearby.
To make the image even more macabre, a popular legend says that every year, on November 2nd, the Day of the Dead, the remains of a little girl, located near the altar, come to life and lead the other skeletons in a kind of somber dance...
For a long time, it was believed that the bones at San Bernardino belonged to Christians killed by heretics during the time when Saint Ambrose was the bishop of Milan. Thus, the church and the ossuary gained great popularity among the Milanese, who began to call the place the "Sanctuary of the Innocents". As the community of believers grew, a larger church was needed. Therefore, in 1750, a larger church was built to the left of the ossuary, called since then San Bernardino dei Morti or San Bernardino alle Ossa.
To the right, one of the church's chapels houses the tombs of some descendants of Christopher Columbus (the explorer was born in Italy, and his memorial house is among the tourist attractions in Genoa).
Finally, an interesting fact: in 1738, King John V of Portugal was so impressed by the ossuary at San Bernardino that he built a similar one in Evora, near Lisbon, called the Capela dos Ossos.
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