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How Long Did It Take to Build Milan Cathedral?
Short answer: about 579 years, from 1386 to 1965.
Forty meters above the altar hangs a nail said to come from the Cross. Each September the archbishop is lifted up to it on a cloud-shaped lift.
What the sources say about the building period
Construction began 1386; Veneranda Fabbrica founded 1387; last portal completed 1965. Milanofree (cites the Veneranda Fabbrica archive) Secondary source
Stone and crew in numbers
- Country and type
- Italy, cathedral
- Stone in the walls
- 130,000 to 220,000 m³ Estimate
- For comparison
- about 70 Olympic pools of stone, or 17,500 truckloads
- Average crew
- about 36 workers (model value: the crew that would need exactly this long, working without a break)
Volume basis: 12,000 m² building area; nave 46.8 m high; brick core with marble. Checked against measurements. Our estimates come from published dimensions and are shown as a range. The result is a simple model, not a measured fact.
Where the stone came from
Pink-white Candoglia marble from the Ossola valley, given to the cathedral works in 1387. The blocks went by barge down the Toce, across Lake Maggiore and along the Ticino and the Naviglio canals to Milan. Borghi et al. 2015, Candoglia Marble and the Veneranda Fabbrica (EGU abstract), Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo (Google Arts & Culture) Academic source
Plan
Legend: tradition, not evidence
The Holy Nail, one of the nails of the Cross found by Saint Helena, is kept 40 m above the high altar.
What we know: The ritual is real. Every September the archbishop is lifted to the nail on a cloud-shaped lift, the Nivola, and the nail is shown for 40 hours. That the nail is genuine rests on tradition only.
Veneranda Fabbrica: the Holy Nail (Google Arts & Culture), Wikipedia: Rito della Nivola Tradition, not evidence
Build it yourself
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More cathedrals
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