While much of Italy’s appeal is rooted in its relaxed pace and Old World feel, Milan — the nation’s second city and financial capital — offers just the opposite. But travelers who make time for Milan find that this modern, industrious metropolis packs historic highlights as powerful as other Italian cities’.

I’d start a first visit (well, any visit) at the heart of the city: Piazza del Duomo, which is dominated by Milan’s cathedral, the Duomo di Milano. It’s the third-largest church in Europe, after St. Peter’s in Rome and the Cathedral of Sevilla in Spain. To build it, the Milanesi used the most expensive stone they could find: pink marble.

The facade is a commotion of Gothic features — pointed-arch windows, statues, little pinnacles, and reliefs. Scholars count a thousand individual ca

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