Basilica di San Lorenzo, Milano

The Basilica of Saint Lawrence (Italian: Chiesa di San Lorenzo Maggiore) is a church in Milan, northern Italy, dedicated to the Christian martyr St. Lawrence. Various suggestions of its origin have been made, including a foundation in c.370., the Basilica of San Lorenzo was renovated and redecorated in the 16th century. It has however maintained the original Byzantine structure, with a dome and four towers resembling those of Constantinople's Hagia Sofia. A recent detailed stratiographic study of the walls identified five phases of construction in antiquity from Theodosius I to the early Lombard period. The church is a quatrefoil central-plan building, with a double-shell layout, consisting of an open central area (the inner shell)...