The Rebecchino was a historic neighborhood of
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
,
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
, located in the immediate surroundings of
Milan's Cathedral, in what is now
Piazza del Duomo. The neighborhood was demolished in the second half of the 19th century to allow for the thorough redesign of the ''piazza'' that led to its modern, monumental layout.
Reportedly, the Rebecchino was named after an eponymous inn, dating back to the 16th century, which in turn took its name from the fact that its sign had a
rebec
The rebec (sometimes rebecha, rebeckha, and other spellings, pronounced or ) is a bowed stringed instrument of the Medieval era and the early Renaissance. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and one to five strings.
Origins ...
on it. This inn was so well known that the word "rebecchino" (also spelled "rebechino") eventually came to mean "cheap hotel" per
antonomasia
In rhetoric, antonomasia is a kind of metonymy in which an epithet or phrase takes the place of a proper name, such as "the little corporal" for Napoleon I, or conversely the use of a proper name as an archetypal name, to express a generic idea. ...
.
The first plans to demolish the Rebecchino date back to the
Napoleonic
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of mi ...
rule of Milan, in the 18th century, when the modern Piazza del Duomo began to take shape.
[Storia di Milano: la sistemazione finale della piazza]
/ref> While the Cathedral and the surrounding piazza were supposed to become a symbol of the wealth of Milan, the Rebecchino clashed with this vision, as it was a chaotic agglomerate of old, decayed buildings; its narrow streets were populated by thieves and other evil-doers that would prey on the pilgrims visiting the Cathedral.
The order for the demolition of the Rebecchino, along with that of the Coperto dei Figini (a portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...
dating back to the Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
, also in the area of the Cathedral) was formalized in 1810, but quarrels followed, and the neighborhood survived for several decades, somewhat like "an island" in the middle of the developing plaza.William I William I may refer to:
Kings
* William the Conqueror (–1087), also known as William I, King of England
* William I of Sicily (died 1166)
* William I of Scotland (died 1214), known as William the Lion
* William I of the Netherlands and Luxembour ...
visiting Milan in 1875.Storia di Milano: dal 1871 al 1880
/ref>
Footnotes
{{coord, 45.4638, N, 9.1895, E, source:wikidata, display=title
History of Milan