Italy
Who ruled Milan?
Milan dates from about 600 BCE. On our historical maps, the ground it stands on has been drawn inside 17 different states, empires and peoples. Read the history of Italy.
The history of Milan
Milan lies in the middle of the Lombard plain, between the Alps and the river Po, with no sea, no great river and no natural defences. What it has instead is position: roads from the Alpine passes to the south and from Venice to France meet here, and that has made it rich in almost every century. Its history swings between periods as a capital in its own right, under late Roman emperors and Renaissance dukes, and long stretches as the prize of foreign powers, before it became the industrial and financial engine of modern Italy.
From Mediolanum to the duchy
Celtic Insubres settled the site by around 600 BCE. Roman armies took it in 222 BCE and called it Mediolanum, "the place in the middle of the plain". Its moment of imperial glory came in the late third century, when Diocletian made it the residence of the western emperors in 286 CE. In 313 Constantine I and Licinius agreed there the policy of toleration remembered as the Edict of Milan, and under its bishop Ambrose (374 to 397) the city became a powerhouse of Latin Christianity. Its days as a capital ended in 402, when the court moved to the safety of Ravenna. Attila sacked it in 452, Gothic forces devastated it in 539 during Justinian's wars, and the Lombards, who gave Lombardy its name, captured it in 569.
By the eleventh century Milan was a self-governing commune within the Holy Roman Empire and the leading city of northern Italy. Its defiance of Frederick Barbarossa led him to raze much of it in 1162, but the Lombard League, with Milan at its heart, defeated him at Legnano in 1176. Power then passed to signori: the Visconti family won the city in 1277, and in 1395 Gian Galeazzo Visconti bought the title of duke from the emperor. After the Visconti line died out in 1447 and a short-lived republic collapsed, the condottiere Francesco Sforza took over in 1450. The Sforza court made Milan a centre of the Renaissance, and Leonardo da Vinci painted the Last Supper there in the 1490s.
Foreign rule and the modern city
The French invaded in 1499, and after decades of war the duchy passed to Spain when the last Sforza duke died in 1535. Spanish rule lasted until the War of the Spanish Succession, which handed Milan to the Austrian Habsburgs (confirmed in 1714). The plague of 1630 killed a large part of the population, an episode later made famous by Alessandro Manzoni's novel The Betrothed. Austrian reforms under Maria Theresa modernised the city, and the opera house La Scala opened in 1778.
Napoleon entered in 1796 and made Milan the capital first of the Cisalpine Republic and then of his Kingdom of Italy (1805 to 1814). Austria returned in 1815, but in March 1848 the citizens drove its garrison out during the Five Days of Milan. After the battle of Magenta in 1859 Lombardy joined Piedmont-Sardinia, and two years later the new Kingdom of Italy.
Milan industrialised fast, and its politics were turbulent: troops fired on bread rioters in 1898, and in 1919 Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist movement at a meeting in the city. Allied bombing in 1943 badly damaged it, and in April 1945 the dictator's body was displayed in Piazzale Loreto. After the war Milan led the "economic miracle", becoming Italy's capital of banking, publishing, fashion and design. The city has about 1.4 million inhabitants, with more than 3 million in its metropolitan area.
In pictures
2 images · scroll →Timeline
28 periods- 123,000 BCE – 10,000 BCENeanderthalMap of 123,000 BCE →
- 10,000 BCE – 5000 BCENo state drawn here on the mapMap of 10,000 BCE →
- 5000 BCE – 4000 BCENo state drawn here on the mapunder Cardial Ware cultureMap of 5000 BCE →
- 4000 BCE – 1500 BCENo state drawn here on the mapMap of 4000 BCE →
- 1500 BCE – 1000 BCEUrnfield culturesMap of 1500 BCE →
- 1000 BCE – 700 BCEUrnfield culturesMap of 1000 BCE →
- 700 BCE – 500 BCEUrnfield culturesMap of 700 BCE →
- 500 BCE – 400 BCENo state drawn here on the mapMap of 500 BCE →
- 400 BCE – 323 BCEHallstatt cultureMap of 400 BCE →
- 323 BCE – 200 BCENo state drawn here on the mapMap of 323 BCE →
- 200 BCE – 100 BCERomeMap of 200 BCE →
- 100 BCE – 1 BCERoman RepublicMap of 100 BCE →
- 1 BCE – 300 CERoman EmpireMap of 1 BCE →
- 300 CE – 400 CERome (Maximian)Map of 300 CE →
- 400 CE – 500 CEWestern Roman EmpireMap of 400 CE →
- 500 CE – 600 CEOstrogothsMap of 500 CE →
- 600 CE – 800 CELombard principalitiesMap of 600 CE →
- 800 CE – 1000 CECarolingian EmpireMap of 800 CE →
- 1000 CE – 1530 CEHoly Roman EmpireMap of 1000 CE →
- 1530 CE – 1650 CEMilanMap of 1530 CE →
- 1650 CE – 1715 CEMilanunder Spanish HabsburgMap of 1650 CE →
- 1715 CE – 1783 CEMilanunder Habsburg MonarchyMap of 1715 CE →
- 1783 CE – 1800 CEMilano (Austria)under AustriaMap of 1783 CE →
- 1800 CE – 1815 CELombardyMap of 1800 CE →
- 1815 CE – 1878 CELombardyunder Austrian EmpireMap of 1815 CE →
- 1878 CE – 1914 CEItalyMap of 1878 CE →
- 1914 CE – 1920 CEKingdom of Italyunder ItalyMap of 1914 CE →
- 1920 CE – todayItalyMap of 1920 CE →
Quick answers
- Who rules Milan today?
- On the latest map, Milan is in Italy.
- Who ruled Milan the longest?
- On our maps, the Holy Roman Empire, for about 530 years (1000 CE to 1530 CE).
- How many times has Milan changed hands?
- Our maps show it passing to a new ruler 11 times since 1 CE.
- Who ruled Milan in 1 CE, 1000, 1500 and 1900?
- In 1 CE: Roman Empire. In 1000: Holy Roman Empire. In 1500: Holy Roman Empire. In 1900: Italy.
Dates are the years of our map snapshots, which are decades or centuries apart, so a change shown between two years happened at some point in that gap. The borders come from the historical-basemaps project and are approximate, especially for the ancient world and for peoples without fixed frontiers.
Milan on this site
- Born in Milan
- Caravaggio (1571–1610) and Thomas Edison (1847–1931)
- Died in Milan
- Theodosius I (347–395 CE) and Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
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