Chiesa di San Marco

According to tradition, the church was dedicated to St. Marco in gratitude for the help given by Venice to Milan in the fight against Barbarossa, but the first certain news dates back to 1254 when Lanfranco Settala, Prior General of the Hermits of St. Agostino, had a Gothic church with three naves built incorporating previous buildings. The structure did not undergo major changes until the 17th century when the church, which became the general house of the Augustinian order, was transformed into Baroque forms and became, after the Duomo, the largest in Milan.

In the 18th century, as a plaque reminds us, Mozart the young man lived in the rectory for three months, Giovanni Battista Sammartini was organist there. On 22 May 1874, Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem Mass was performed for the first time, which he himself directed and which he had composed to honour the writer Alessandro Manzoni on the first anniversary of his death.