Discovering the colorful frescoes of Milan’s Portinari Chapel

Travelers to Italy will find that the largest cities like Rome, Florence, and Venice have a basically never-ending offer of Catholic sites lying in plain sight. Exploring Milan’s Catholic heritage, however, requires a little more effort. 

Italy’s second largest city was heavily bombed during World War II, leaving many of its historical buildings and churches destroyed. Today, the city can look like a patchwork of different architectural styles piled over the centuries. Apart from the iconic Duomo and the church that hosts the “Last Supper,” Catholic sites are much more hidden than in other cities. One such hidden gem is the Portinari Chapel, found inside the 13th-century St. Eustorgius Basilica. 

Completed between 1462 and 1468 after the commission of Pigello Portinari, a devout Florentine merchant who relocated to Milan, the Portinari Chapel is one of the best examples of Renaissance art in Milan. Its plan follows a design popularized by Renaissance master Brunelleschi in Florence, with a squared floor plan and a rounded dome divided into 16 segments. The apse and window frames are ornamented with finely-detailed terracotta motifs. 

What steals the scene, however, is a series of wonderful frescoes by Vincenzo Foppa, one of Milan’s leading Renaissance painters. Foppa was asked by Portinari to create a series of frescoes to celebrate the lives of St. Peter Martyr and the Virgin Mary, including the “Annunciation,” the “Assumption of the Virgin,” the “Miracle of the healed foot,” the “Miracle of Narni” and the “Martyrdom of St. Peter Martyr.” 

American writer Edith Wharton visited the Chapel in the early 1900s and was mesmerized by the colors of Foppa’s frescoes. “Nothing in Milan comes near the beauty of the colors that adorn Portinari Chapel,” the writer said in a travelog published in 1905. “I can think of no better example in Italy of a great collaboration between an architect and a painter.” 

Indeed, even today, after more than 500 years since its creation, the Portinari’s Chapel leaves visitors awe-struck. The ceiling is divided into 16 segments decorated with a feather-like pattern and painted with the colors of the rainbow, slowly transitioning from red to yellow to green and light blue. 

The viewer is invited to follow this transition, reaching the center of the ceiling where an oculus window lets natural light shine in. According to many art historians, Foppa chose this unique design to represent Paradise. 

For decades this hidden Catholic gem was forgotten. It was only in 1952 that restorers “re-discovered” Foppa’s frescoes under layers of stucco that had been covering the original 15th-century works. Following a series of restorations, the Chapel was finally opened to the public in 2000. 

To visit the Portinari Chapel, you can enter the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio in Piazza Sant’Eustorgio 3. Visits are allowed Tuesday to Sunday between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tickets can be booked in person or here.