Sant'Ambrogio della Vittoria, Parabiago

The church of Sant'Ambrogio della Vittoria is a 14th-century church in Parabiago.

During the Battle of Parabiago in 1339 Luchino Visconti had been taken prisoner and tied to a walnut tree, but Saint Ambrose would appear to him and miraculously free him. In gratitude for the grace received it was decided to erect a church named after the saint at the site of the battle, the foundation stone of which was laid by Archbishop Giovanni Visconti. Completed in 1348, the temple was entrusted to chaplains appointed by the city administration of Milan, and every year, on the anniversary of the battle, a religious procession was held there in which the city's nobles participated.

In 1481 at the petition of the nobles of Parabiago, the church was entrusted to the Friars of the congregation of St. Barnabas and St. Ambrose ad nemus. In 1586 the people of Parabiago complained again about the friars' management of the church, and in 1647 the Council of LX decurions entrusted it to the Cistercian Fathers of Lombardy, who were able to take possession only in 1668. The monastic community had land holdings beyond the border with Nerviano, as far as the Olona River.

In 1606 the architect Alessandro Bisnati had been entrusted with the project for the renovation of the church, which, however, involving the demolition of the existing building, was deemed too costly. Demolition and reconstruction work began in 1624, and in 1647, when the building passed to the Cistercians, it was still not completed. Construction work on the new church and the adjoining monastery took place between 1708 and 1713, under the direction of architect Giovan Battista Quadrio. Following a visit by Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick, betrothed to the future emperor Charles VI of Habsburg in the first year of the work, the abbot obtained that a branch of the Riale, known as the Röngieta, be built to irrigate the Cistercian properties, starting from the square and skirting to the right the street named after the church.

The bell tower was erected in 1723-1725 to a design by architect Pietrasanta. Also in the 18th century, the church was enriched with paintings and an organ, dated 1716.

In 1796, due to the French Revolution, the Cistercians were forced to sell their property, and in 1798 the order was also suppressed.

In 1799 the entire complex was used as a school for poor children, but under the French revolutionary regime, precisely in the republican year V, it was bought by a Swiss man named Emanuele Odoni, who was immediately seized by the Administration of the Religious Fund. In the Republican year VI the monastery and other religious property were bought by the "Citizen" Manara, a personage, however, not well identified, and soon after by a certain Giovan Battista Litta Modignani; finally it was taken by a priest named Don Carlo Rota, who, wanting to compete with the Cavalleri College for Nobles, located in the square in front of the Prepositurale church in Parabiago, made it the seat of a similar educational institute; it lasted only a short time because Don Agostino Peregalli, Parish priest of Parabiago and rector of Cavalleri, absorbed it, moving the college from its historical seat in the square to the former Monastery, until 1857, when the renowned aristocratic school closed forever.

In 1864 Mrs. Rachele Peregalli, great-granddaughter of the aforementioned parish priest, sold the entire complex to Don Giovanni Spagliardi, who founded there the Pio Istituto per fanciulli derelitti, a reformatory whose "guests" in the village were nicknamed "barabitt," or little Barabbas. In 1869 it merged with the Marchiondi Institute in Milan, taking the name Opera Pia Marchiondi Spagliardi for juvenile assistance. But in 1924 the Parabiago branch closed its doors, moving permanently to the Milan branch.

The entire complex was declared a National Monument in 1913.

In November 1932, the Provincial Hospital Administration, bought the former monastery to make it a detached section of the Mombello "asylum," naming it Cerletti Psychiatric Hospital for Incurable Chronicles and giving it under administration to the Sisters of the Child Mary. Dismantled the old asylum, nowadays it is the headquarters of the ASL.

In the year 2006, a campaign began, carried out by the Lions Club Parabiago and the local cultural association El Bigatt, to promote the knowledge, recovery and reuse, religious and otherwise, of the monument in question. This campaign, with meetings and a conference held in the year 2007, which was also attended by eminent scholars and art critics, including then-Milan City Councilor for Culture Vittorio Sgarbi and Professor Emeritus Maria Luisa Gatti Perer, reached a first milestone with the restoration of the bell tower, the work on which was completed at the beginning of the year 2009.

The Parabiago Lions Club and the El Bigatt Cultural Association, with the intention of continuing the work and thus also carrying out the restoration of the church, promoted a conference on April 23, 2009, which, in addition to illustrating the work already done on the tower, also saw the presentation of the anastatic reprint, edited by the Parabiago Lions Club, of an important historical text by the author Maria Luisa Gatti Perer concerning this very monument.