You can be a student of history, or you could be a student surrounded by history.

Imagine studying within the walls of a former monastery and cloisters adjacent to the 4^th century Basilica Sant’Ambrogio: a site with historical pedigree that houses the relics of Milan’s first Bishop and Patron Saint, St Ambrose. Walking to lectures under the university’s stone portico and entering the gardens of the twin cloisters (designed by Bramante) was like entering an intellectual sanctuary of past saints and students.

I came to learn that St Ambrose was a force to be reckoned with in Milan: he famously refused to permit entrance into the Milan Cathedral (the original one that would have faced the current Cathedral if it was still standing today) of Emperor Theodosius until he publicly repented of having massacred 7000 people in Thessalonica. The Emperor ultimately bowed to St Ambrose’s request and the stand-off is captured in a painting by Camillo Procaccini within the Basilica.

Perhaps in keeping with St Ambrose’s warrior-like defence of Milan against Imperial heavyweights the saint lies at the junction of religious, civic and teaching institutions in Piazza Sant’Ambrogio, with the Basilica bordered by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and the State police barracks.

While Ambrose’s relics lie comfortably undisturbed between those of two other saints in the Basilica’s crypt, work on a new metro station nearby has unceremoniously unearthed further relics that are being exhumed and relocated to safer environs.

Around stone seats in the Piazza outside the university family groups gather at graduation time with their Prosecco magnums and paper cups to enthusiastically celebrate their graduands: the laurel wreaths on the graduands’ heads symbolic of the victor’s spoils after having successfully defended their final thesis.

This blend of every-day life, age-old traditions and historical heritage around Sant’Ambrogio is symptomatic, I think, of Milan: it’s a city where the past and the present co-exist while making room for the future.