Church of San Satiro

South of the cathedral piazza, you will see the famous church of San Satiro, a study in ingenuity, commissioned from Milan's foremost Renaissance architect, Bramante, in 1476. Originally the oratory of the adjacent 9th century church of San Satiro, Bramante tranformed it into a long-naved basilica by converting the long oblong oratory into the transept and adding a trompe l'oeil apse to the back wall. The original structure of San Satiro was derived from Armenian architecture. It was an imitation of the 7th century Armenian cathedral of Bagaran, known as St. John or Sourp Hovhannes. The Armenian cathedral was blown up by the Turkish army after the 1960s.