“Gloriose sacris micat ornata Ecclesiis Ex quibus alma est Laurenti....” In the Via Ticinese, just within the twelfth century boundary of the city, there stands a magnificent row of Corinthian columns, the only vestige above ground, in its original position, of the imperial Milan, whose splendours were sung by Ausonius. The Roman building of which they formed probably the peristyle, has long vanished, but the place where it must have stood is now occupied by San Lorenzo, the most ancient existing church in Milan, though much restored and altered, especially in the sixteenth century. The large impressive interior, octagonal in form, and surrounded by a wide ambulatory with a gallery above, which opens into the body of the church through four double storied arcades, recalls the style of San Vitale at Ravenna. Recent studies favour the theory that it was built in this form, as a church, in the sixth century, rather than the old idea that it was originally the great hall of Maximian’s Baths, and was converted to a Christian temple by St. Ambrose. However that may be, its form carries us back to a time which no other building in Milan commemorates, when the Roman Empire still lived, and the Church had but lately issued from its martyr struggles, and was still linked in its architecture with the old world. San Lorenzo has unfortunately preserved none of those splendours celebrated by historian and poet in the eighth century. Arnolfo the chronicler weeps over the destruction of its roofs of mosaic and gold and starry gems, its paintings and sculptured marbles, in the calamitous fire of 1071. _Oh Temple, which had not your like in the world_, he cries. Restored after the fire, it was again grievously damaged by fire in 1124, and again restored. The fall of a great part of the roof in 1573 gave Cardinal Borromeo and his favourite Pellegrini an opportunity for interference. Pellegrini was succeeded in the work of restoration by his pupil, Martino Bassi. The result of their labours was the present lofty cupola, supported on great pilasters between the openings into the ambulatory, and the heavy architectural decoration of neo-classic style, which impose upon the old building, bare now of the rich and glowing colour of its original design, a cold, austere and melancholy character.