The history of the heart of Milan entwined with the ancient divine feminine cults
Travel Blog
During this Imbolc and its promise of rebirth after Yule’s pause, I have decided to take you with me on an important journey of rediscovery. What if I told you that the Duomo, Milan’s Cathedral – the beating heart of my city – was founded on the site where Goddess Brigid was once venerated? The Goddess of Imbolc, Goddess of Rebirth, just like the Duomo that was dedicated not to a male figure, but to Maria Nascente – Mary Being Born or Dawning Mary – whose epigraph still appears on its facade today. A cathedral under which foundations the remains of a spring or a pond have been uncovered, as well as an ancient Temple of Goddess Minerva – the Roman transposition of Goddess Brigid – and two churches dedicated, once again, to female figures: Santa Tecla and Santa Maria Maggiore. All coincidences? I do not think so!
Let’s embark together on this journey!
According to historical and archaeological reconstructions, Milan was established around 590 BC, probably with the name of Medhelan, by a tribe of Insubri Celts within the context of the Golasecca culture. The Roman historian Tito Livio recounts that Milan was founded by the legendary Celtic leader and warlord Bellovesus in the 6th century BC – in the place where a white scrofa semilanuta, ‘half-woollen sow’, was found – after he had defeated the Etruscans who until then had maintained their hegemony over the area. The archaeological finds have highlighted, for instance, how the first settlement of the newly born Medhelan was located around the current Piazza della Scala.
Legend has it that Bellovesus chose this area for the settlement’s foundation owing to the encounter with the above mentioned half-woollen sow – animal sacred to the Celts and totemic of Goddess Brigid – who was drinking at a nearby spring, and followed her up to a hawthorn bush, interpreting this encounter as a divine, magical and propitiatory sign. In this sense, the etymology of the original name of Milan, Medhelan, is in fact interpreted by some scholars as medio lanae, ‘half woollen’ – so much so that the half-woollen sow remained the symbol of Milan for centuries, before being replaced with the best known ‘Biscione’ snake of the Visconti dinasty, and which we can still admire today in a representation on a pillar of the Palazzo della Ragione, again in the Duomo area.
And that’s not all: the Roman historian Polybius tells that, right in this chosen place, stood the Temple of a Gallic Goddess: Belisama, or Belisma, Celtic Mother Goddess of the arts and of fire, also associated with the cult of water, and whose totemic animal was the white sow – just like Brigid. A Latin inscription found at Saint-Lizier in Aquitaine identifies Belisama with Goddess Minerva / Athena – further demonstration to the fact that here we are in front of the same Goddess under different guises. What’s more, Belisama’s companion was Belanu, god of light, one of the most important deities in Central European culture – note the element Bel in both names, indicating the element of Light in both divinities. All in all, we would be looking at an ancient place of worship of Goddess Belisama, alias Brigid.
So much so that, in other etymological interpretations of the ancient name of Milan, it is believed that, in the Celtic world, a Medhelan was a sanctuary positioned at the centre of precise geographical and astral coordinates and a meeting place for particular religious, political, and commercial occasions – just like the nearby Duomo, Palazzo della Ragione and via Mercanti. The ancient presence, in line with Celtic tradition, of a stone circle or of a nemeton – sacred to the Druids – in the same area has also been hypothesised.
The most recent archaeological finds support the history of a Milan consecrated to the divine feminine for over 2500 years. In the early 1960s, the excavation works for the construction of the Milanese underground brought to light the remains of the Basilica maior consecrated to Santa Tecla, buried under Duomo’s churchyard, and the Basilica vetus, consecrated to Santa Maria Maggiore, located in correspondence of the cathedral’s apse. And what’s more: on the occasion of Expo 2015, a very important new discovery was announced: the remains of a Temple dedicated to Goddess Minerva under the ruins of Santa Tecla’s church.
Belisama, Minerva, Tecla, Maria Maggiore, and Maria Nascente: Milan’s Duomo, one of the most important cathedrals of Christianity, consecrated, for almost three millennia, to the Goddess, as the golden ‘Madunina’ statue reminds us, still standing tall from the highest pinnacle, protecting my city.
Milan was born on a religious site dedicated to the Mother Goddess, to whom different civilisations over the centuries have bowed respectfully, asking for Her protection. It is therefore not surprising that its Cathedral, and the previous places of worship at its foundations, are said to hide water springs or a pond in its subsoil, a characteristic common to many ancient sites related to Goddess worship. Among other things, think of the nearby streets, named via Laghetto (Pond Street) and via Pantano (Mud Street)…
The ancient history of Milan was not overlooked by the builders of the Duomo in the Middle Ages. This Gothic cathedral among the most important in Europe, the fourth largest church in the world, and the largest in Italy, still preserves important symbolism linked to the ancient Celtic origin of the site. From the internal colonnade that recalls an oak forest, to the oak motifs on the left door of the Cathedral itself, to the triskell symbols carved on its vaults. Not to mention the countless esoteric, alchemical, masonic and templar references enclosed in the same Cathedral, from its sundial depicting the 12 zodiac signs and positioned in correspondence with the Summer and Winter Solstices, to the nail from the crucifixion of Christ preserved in the vault of the apse.
…And the tale does not end here: think of the various towns and centres of worship associated with Saint Brigid in Lombardy, as well as the nearby Brianza province itself, whose name derives from Brigid (Brigantia).
Are you interested in visiting the places of the Mother Goddess in Milan with me? Contact me!
Noted below are a few web resources that I found of inspiration:
www.art-spettacoli.org/wordpress/il-segreto-del-lago-sotto-il-duomo-di-milano/
axismundi.blog/2018/02/01/imbolc-la-triplice-dea-brigit-e-lincubazione-della-primavera/amp/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisama
www.giardinodellefate.cloud/duomo-di-milano/
www.ilgiorno.it/milano/cronaca/2014/01/29/1017757-archeologia.shtml
it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_maior
it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santuario_di_Minerva
www.milanoplatinum.com/le-tre-madri-le-origini-di-milano.html
milanosegreta.weebly.com/la-scrofa-semilanuta.html
pietrediluna.forumfree.it/m/?t=75274780
www.storiadimilano.it/citta/Piazza_Duomo/duomo_celti.htm
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