Milan

Milan is Italy's business hub and crucible of chic. It is the country's most populous and prosperous city, serving as the capital of commerce, finance, fashion, and media. It's also Italy's transport hub, with the biggest international airport, most rail connections, and best subway system. Da Vinci's Last Supper and other great works of art are here, as well as a spectacular baroque Duomo, the finest of its kind.

And yet, Milan hasn't won the battle of hearts and minds. Most tourists prefer Tuscany's hills and Venice's canals to Milan's hectic efficiency and wealthy indifference, and it's no surprise that in a country of medieval hilltop villages and skilled artisans, a city of grand boulevards and global corporations leaves visitors asking the real Italy to please stand up. They're right, of course. Milan is more European than Italian, a new buckle on an old boot, and although its old city can stand cobblestone for cobblestone against the best of them, seekers of Roman ruins and fairy-tale towns may pass.

Milan never had it easy. To turn their landlocked outpost into a regional power, Milanese had to dig an extensive network of deep canals, eventually linking the city to the Po, Ticino, and Adda rivers. Lacking natural defenses, they built strong walls to keep the marauding hordes at bay. For income, local merchants took advantage of nearby Alpine trade routes to build a great trading center. Even talent was imported when needed; from St. Ambrose and Leonardo da Vinci to the waves of migrants who fueled its growth in the second half of the 20th century, outsiders have been drawn to Milan for its open, freewheeling commercial culture and acceptance of new ideas. The result has been an ever-expanding power, and a juicy target for conquest.

Virtually every invader in European history -- Gaul, Roman, Goth, Longobard, and Frank -- as well as a long series of rulers from France, Spain, and Austria, took a turn at ruling the city. After being completely sacked by the Goths in AD 539 and the Holy Roman Empire under Frederick Barbarossa in 1157, Milan became one of the first independent city-states of the Renaissance. Its heyday of self-rule proved comparatively brief. From 1277 until 1500, it was ruled by the Visconti and subsequently the Sforza dynasties. These families were known, justly or not, for a peculiarly aristocratic mixture of refinement, classical learning, and cruelty, and much of the surviving grandeur of Gothic and Renaissance art and architecture is their doing. Be on the lookout in your wanderings for the Visconti family emblem -- a viper, its jaws straining wide, devouring a child.