Duomo di Monza

Founded by a Lombard queen and rebuilt from 1300 into the white-and-green basilica of St John the Baptist, Monza Cathedral preserves the Iron Crown, insignia used in the coronation of the kings of Italy, and a major museum complex.

Why it matters

Few Italian cathedrals carry this much political and religious history in one building. The Duomo grew around the memory of Queen Theodelinda, the Lombard ruler who chose Monza as a seat of power in the late sixth century and whose patronage tied the city to the Christian monarchy of Italy. The cathedral she inspired was rebuilt in its present Gothic form from 1300, when the archpriest Avvocato degli Avvocati laid the foundation stone, and its striped marble facade of white and dark green still defines Piazza del Duomo. Inside is the Iron Crown, which the cathedral's own site calls one of the most important symbols of Western Christendom and the crown with which the kings of Italy were crowned — Napoleon among them. UNESCO has recognised the Duomo as a "Heritage Witness to a Culture of Peace for Humanity", a rare and distinctive declaration.

What to notice

The facade's two-tone marbling is characteristic of Lombard Gothic architecture. The Theodelinda Chapel opens from the northern transept in slender Gothic forms; it was built around the turn of the fifteenth century in the final phase of the basilica's reconstruction. Along its walls runs one of Italy's masterpieces of International Gothic painting; the crown itself is kept inside a consecrated altar that Luca Beltrami designed in 1895–96. The bell tower rises above the cathedral complex. The Museo e Tesoro brings together Lombard treasury objects, the museum's collections and works from the city's other medieval churches.

Context and history

The story begins with Theodelinda, whose devotion to St John the Baptist and to the Holy Nail gave Monza its religious foundations; the cathedral's site traces the tradition of the Holy Nail, officially established as a cult by St Charles Borromeo in 1576, and the crown that embodies it. Six gold plates set with gems and enamels make up the Iron Crown, enclosing a narrow metal band that an ancient tradition — St Ambrose already reports it at the end of the fourth century — identifies as a nail of Christ's crucifixion, said to have been found by St Helena and set into Constantine's diadem. Modern scientific study suggests the crown took shape between late antiquity and the ninth century, perhaps as an Ostrogothic royal insignia before passing to Lombard and Carolingian rulers. The Duomo's right to host the coronations of Italian kings received papal affirmation from Innocent VI in 1354. The present basilica, begun in 1300, and the Zavattari family's fifteenth-century frescoes completed the monument you visit today.