San Carlo al Lazzaretto, Milan

San Carlo al Lazzaretto is a small Renaissance style octagonal church now in largo Bellintani Fra Paolo, number 1 in the quartiere Porta Venezia of Milan.

Its present situation, amidst crowded 19th and 20th century apartment blocks, has little relationship to its original placement, in the central park of a massive rectangular cloister-like 15th-century leprosarium (Lazaretto).

The church, once called Tempietto di Santa Maria della Sanità or San Carlino, escaped the late-nineteenth century demolition of the Lazzaretto.

During the Cisalpine Republic, the architect Giuseppe Piermarini was commissioned to transform the church into a secular Temple of the Nation (Tempio della Patria).

[3] Because of the vibrations produced by the underground train under viale Tunisia which have damaged the dome the church has been subject to studies to reinforce its structure.

Present "Rear" of the church
Facade with 19th-century portico
Aerial view of the Lazzaretto with the church of San Carlo in the center
Lazzaretto in 1880, a few years before demolition
Map of Milan 1573, with rectangular Lazzaretto just outside the city walls on the right of the print