Mirasole Abbey was founded as a monastery of the Humiliati in the first half of the 13th century. Its economy was based on the working of wool and the production of woollen cloth.
The Humiliati were abolished in 1571, and the abbey became the property of the Collegio Elvetico in Milan, which was taken over for the use of the Austrian administration in 1786 (the building is now the Palazzo del Senato); its spiritual life was administered by the Olivetans. In 1797, the former abbey was given to the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan.
In 2013 a community of Premonstratensian canons moved into the former abbey premises as the Priorato San Norberto, a priory of Mondaye Abbey in France.
The rectangular layout includes a church and cloisters. The buildings were once surrounded by a moat, towers and a drawbridge. One entrance led towards the country, the other into the city. The church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries. It contains a fresco of the Assumption of the Virgin by an anonymous master of 1460, linked to the school of Michelino da Besozzo.
References:The Amphitheatre of the Three Gauls was part of the federal sanctuary of the three Gauls dedicated to the cult of Rome and Augustus celebrated by the 60 Gallic tribes when they gathered at Lugdunum (Lyon). The amphitheatre was built at the foot of the La Croix-Rousse hill at what was then the confluence of the Rhône and Saône.
Excavations have revealed a basement of three elliptical walls linked by cross-walls and a channel surrounding the oval central arena. The arena was slightly sloped, with the building"s south part supported by a now-vanished vault. The arena"s dimensions are 67,6m by 42m. This phase of the amphitheatre housed games which accompanied the imperial cult, with its low capacity (1,800 seats) being enough for delegations from the 60 Gallic tribes.
The amphitheatre was expanded at the start of the 2nd century. Two galleries were added around the old amphitheatre, raising its width from 25 metres to 105 metres and its capacity to about 20,000 seats. In so doing it made it a building open to the whole population of Lugdunum and its environs.