Crypt of San Sepolcro

Crypt of San Sepolcro tickets: which one to buy

The crypt has a small ticket of its own, and a combined version with the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana next door costs a little more and is the better buy, since the gallery holds Leonardo's Portrait of a Musician and Caravaggio's Basket of Fruit. Opening is limited and the crypt is sometimes shut without notice, so check the day before. Guided visits run at fixed times and are included in the price on some days.

Walking tours of underground Milan include San Sepolcro and cost several times the ticket, usually adding the Roman remains beneath the Duomo or the crypt of San Giovanni in Conca. The church is in the middle of the old centre, five minutes from the Duomo, on a small square that most visitors walk past without noticing. There is rarely a queue. The Ambrosiana sells the combined ticket at its own desk, and staff there know the crypt's current opening times better than any website.

Visiting Crypt of San Sepolcro: what to see

The church was founded in 1030 and rededicated in 1100 to the Holy Sepulchre, when a Milanese crusader returned from Jerusalem; it was built on the exact centre of Roman Milan, over the paving of the ancient forum, which is still visible in the crypt floor. The crypt was sealed for centuries and reopened in 2016 after restoration, and what you descend into is a low, wide, columned space that Leonardo da Vinci drew and described while working on plans for the city;

his notes give this church as the centre point of his map of Milan. The atmosphere is closer to a Roman cellar than to a church. Above, the upper church is largely a nineteenth-century neo-Romanesque rebuilding, with frescoes by Bramantino moved inside from the portal. The place is quiet in a way almost nothing else in central Milan manages. A wooden sculpture group of the Lamentation, carved in the sixteenth century, stands in a side chamber and is lit only when a visitor approaches.

Crypt of San Sepolcro opening hours and the best time to go

Opening hours are short and vary, typically a few hours on selected days rather than daily, and they change with the season and with the Ambrosiana's schedule; confirm before walking over. The crypt is cool and slightly damp year-round and can be closed after heavy rain. Milan's tourist crowds do not reach here, so there is no need to time a visit around them.

Allow half an hour for the crypt, two hours if you add the Pinacoteca. There is no dress code. Photography is allowed. The square outside, Piazza San Sepolcro, holds the Ambrosiana entrance and little else, and the contrast with the Duomo five minutes away is the point of the detour. Milan's museums close on Mondays and the crypt usually follows suit, which catches out visitors arriving at the start of a week.