Porta Sempione

The triumphal arch, located at the beginning of Corso Sempione, is now part of the extensive Sempione Park. In 1806, the Napoleonic administration of Milan commissioned architect Luigi Cagnola to erect a triumphal arch to celebrate the marriage of the Italian Viceroy Eugène de Beauharnais and Augusta Amalia, Princess of Bavaria. Initially, the arch was temporary and made of wood, but it made such an impression that it was decided to construct it in marble. The first stone was laid on October 14, 1807.

The arch was dedicated to the military victories of Napoleon Bonaparte, but construction dragged on and was then suspended with Napoleon's fall in 1814. Meanwhile, Milan came under the control of the Austrian Empire. In 1826, Austrian Emperor Franz I ordered the completion of the arch. After Luigi Cagnola's death in 1833, Carlo Giuseppe Londonio took over the direction of the work, which was completed in 1838.

The monument was inaugurated on September 10, 1838, in a lavish ceremony presided over by the newly crowned Emperor of Austria, Ferdinand I. However, it is considered to have been officially opened in 1859 when the French Emperor Napoleon III and the first king of a united Italy, Victor Emmanuel II, entered Milan after the victories of the Franco-Sardinian troops over the Austrians at Palestro, Magenta, and Solferino. The structure was renamed the Arch of Peace in honor of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which ended the era of Napoleonic wars.

In keeping with the aesthetics of Neoclassicism and the Napoleonic Empire style, the arch is modeled on ancient Roman triumphal structures. Its closest prototypes are the Arch of Constantine and the Arch of Septimius Severus at the Roman Forum.

The Milanese arch is second in size only to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The arch is 25 meters high and 24 meters wide. It is topped by a bronze quadriga—a Roman chariot drawn by six horses—interpreted as the chariot of the goddess of Peace with a palm branch entering the city of Milan. On either side of the chariot, at the corners of the arch, are four equestrian figures of Victory (goddesses of victory) with laurel wreaths—work by the Bolognese sculptor Giovanni Putti. Below, on the attic (on both sides of the arch), are four allegorical figures of the main rivers of the Lombardy and Veneto regions—Adige, Ticino, Po, and Tagliamento.

In the middle register of the arch, behind Corinthian columns, are allegorical reliefs on the theme of Napoleon's defeat and the restoration of Austrian rule in Lombardy. The position of the horses leading the quadriga was changed at the behest of the Austrian Habsburgs: to mock the French, the horses were turned 180 degrees so that their rear ends faced France.

After Milan shifted from Austrian Habsburg rule to Piedmont, the only changes made to the monument were new dedicatory inscriptions placed on the attic.