The Sanctuary of San Bernardino alle Ossa is known for the ossuary chapel, whose walls are mostly covered with bones to form real decorations. The origins of the San Bernardino complex date back to 1127, when the Milanese citizen Gottifredo de Busser founded the Hospital of San Barnaba in Brolo, which became the third refuge for foundlings in the city. In front of the basilica of Santo Stefano Maggiore, then a vast area of vegetable gardens and woods outside the walls, a cemetery was built to house the bodies of the deceased. The capacity of the cemetery soon proved to be inadequate for the needs of the annexed hospital, so in 1210 a room was built to house the bones from the cemetery, alongside which in 1269 a small church was built, which was dedicated to Maria Addolorata and to the saints Ambrogio and Sebastiano. Latuada reports in his Memoirs that in 1642 the bell tower of the nearby basilica of Santo Stefano in Brolo collapsed, ruining the complex of San Bernardino: the reconstruction of the bell tower and the church of San Bernardino ai Morti was entrusted to Carlo Buzzi and completed by his pupil Jerome Quadrio. Latuada always reports that the bones present in the cemetery were rearranged according to decorative schemes and the vault of the ossuary frescoed by Sebastiano Ricci, and that the king of Portugal John V in a visit was so fascinated by it that he commissioned a similar structure in Èvora -Portugal , later known as capela dos Ossos. However, the facade of the new church remained unfinished until 1679, when the project for the current front was presented, signed by the architect Andrea Biffi, former architect of the Duomo factory and architect of the Borromeos. On the other hand, the reconstruction works of the ossuary date back to 1690, completed five years later with the call of the painter Sebastiano Ricci to paint the vault and the spandrels. The church was finally rebuilt one last time in 1712 after a devastating fire caused the structure to collapse leaving only the facade intact: the project was entrusted to the architect Carlo Giuseppe Merlo, also like Biffi the architect of the Duomo factory, who gave to the church the current appearance with a central plan with an octagonal dome. The hall of the new building was then connected via an ambulatory to the ancient ossuary that survived the fire. The interior has an octagonal plan, simple, with Baroque marble altars and two side chapels. In the chapel on the right there is a marble altar with an altarpiece depicting Saint Mary Magdalene in the house of the Pharisee (by Federico Ferrario). In this chapel, since 1768, there has been a family tomb of some descendants of Christopher Columbus (as the inscription «Peter Antonio and John of Portugal Colon Counts of Puela and Veragua» mentions). On the side frames of the altar are the family crests with the motto: «Colon gave the new world - to Castile and Leon».
- Ossuary
Continuing along a narrow corridor, you enter the ossuary, with a vault frescoed in 1695 by Sebastiano Ricci (Triumph of souls in a flight of angels and, in the spandrels of the vault, the glory of the four patron saints, Santa Maria Vergine, Sant' Ambrose, Saint Sebastian and Saint Bernardino of Siena).
The internal walls of the building, with a square plan, are almost entirely covered with skulls and bones that were found in the ancient ossuary, together with those that were exhumed in the cemeteries suppressed after the closure of the local hospital, which took place in 1652 by disposition of the administration of the Ospedale Maggiore, to which it had been aggregated almost two centuries earlier. All the bones were arranged in the niches, on the cornice, adorning the pillars, adorning the doors. In this decorative motif, the sense of macabre blends properly with the grace of the rococo.
Above the single altar, in precious marble with the emblems of the Passion of Jesus Christ, a statue of Our Lady Dolorosa de Soledad (Santa Maria Addolorata) was placed in a special niche, dressed in a white coat, covered by a black cloak embroidered in gold, with folded hands, kneeling near dead Jesus. The work was performed in the mid-17th century by Gerolamo Cattaneo, during the Spanish domination.
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