Every design for Vigevano

Vigevano is known for two things: shoes, which its factories turned out by the tens of millions for the whole world, and the Piazza Ducale, the long Renaissance square that Ludovico il Moro, born in the town, laid out as a forecourt to his castle. Daily life still runs through that piazza and under its arcades, with the Torre del Bramante watching over it.

An evening there has a feeling all its own, when the arcades light up and the Castello Sforzesco behind them goes dark against the sky. Leonardo da Vinci and Bramante both stayed here as guests of the duke, and inside the castle walls the MIC Museo internazionale della calzatura keeps the memory of the shoe trade that employed so much of the town.

Around it lies the flat rice country of the Lomellina and the woods of the Ticino. Anyone who grew up here can trace the way home on this map, from the piazza outwards.