Promoted by a community of Franciscan tertiaries, Santa Maria in Strada was erected between 1348 and 1368 to a design by Ambrogio da Milano along the strata that connected Monza with the Lombard capital, hence its name.
Passed in 1393 to the Augustinians of the Milanese convent of San Marco, it was internally transformed in 1756 and its façade restored in 1870. Despite the restorations, the façade, with faux loggia and terracotta ornamentation, remains one of the most beautiful of Lombard Gothic, inspired both by the examples of Giovanni di Balduccio of Pisa, active in Milan from 1335 to 1349, and by Matteo da Campione's nearby façade for Monza Cathedral.
The ARTISTIC HERITAGE
Two frescoes from the church of Santa Maria in Strada, parts of an Annunciation scene originally housed on either side of the portal, are preserved in the Museum and Treasury of Monza Cathedral. Datable to the second half of the 14th century, they reflect the style of Giusto de' Menabuoi and are notable for the very delicate rendering of the figures, projected against a background of gilded pastille conceived as a damask that already foreshadowed the splendor of international Gothic painting.
An elegant stone statue of the Madonna and Child, responding to the type of the Madonna Regina, was removed from the facade in 1995 to preserve it in the Museum, and replaced on site by a copy. Datable to the first half of the 15th century, it is the work of an anonymous Lombard master who was also the author of some sculptures for the capitals of Milan Cathedral, inspired by transalpine examples. The prominence given to the belt clasping the woman's waist most likely refers to the Augustinians' devotion to Our Lady of the Girdle, whose cult was approved in 1439. (source: Website - Museo Duomo)
IL CHIOSTRO
This part of Monza, in relation to the road that led to Milan, was, in the 14th century, the favored place for the settlement of convents and hospitals, including the Augustinian complex of Santa Maria in Strada.
Small in size, the convent is a typical example of the monastic architecture of the mendicant orders: four bodies of the building enclose the recently restored inner cloister, the center of monastic religious life. Each body houses different functions, arranged according to a rule: one side is occupied entirely by the church that independently faces the street, while the side perpendicular to it housed the collective spaces, chapter house and refectory, and the others the places of work and residence.
