Home | Branch of Como | The Cathedral of Como

For dimensions it is the third religious building of Lombardy, after the Duomo of Milan and the Certosa di Pavia, of which it is contemporary, and the last Gothic church built in Italy.

Almost four hundred years were used by the Como masters for the construction of the Cathedral, started in 1396, whose facade is still one of the most notable examples of late Gothic northern Italy.

The church, built on the area that housed the ancient church of Santa Maria Maggiore, has a Latin cross layout distributed in three naves divided by twelve cruciform pillars with ogival arches of different width and cross vaults and a transept with an imposing dome. Inside there are 16th and 17th century tapestries and 16th century paintings. The two statues on the door are Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger.

The Cathedral, aligned with the Broletto and the civic tower, overlooks the historic center of Como and stands out from the sight of the tourist who comes to the city from the plains or the lake and points out how Como, through the Lario communication routes, was and it is a connecting city between Northern Europe and Italy. The architecture of the Duomo is a happy case of harmonization of the different historical periods in which it was built. The successive stylistic phases (Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque) are mutually agreed by the wisdom of the architects and by the skill of the workers who worked there, although the dominant one remains the original, that is, the late Gothic-Renaissance.