Santa Maria San Satiro

The Santa Maria San Satiro is a 15th century church which showcases some impressive renaissance design. There used to be a very basic church from the 9th century on this spot, but after a miracle happened, in which a painting started to bleed, they decided to create a new church that stands there today. The church has a white and gold design with three naves.

One of the remarkable aspects of this church, for which we had to put it on this list, is that this small church is home to one of the first optical perspective illusions in the history of art. As there was a road behind the church the architecture had to be restricted in size. So to make the church feel more spacious to give it the stature it deserves a large illusion was drawn behind the altar on the back wall making it appear as if the church is much deeper than it actually is. The apse appears as if it’s almost 10 meters deep, while in reality it extends less than a single meter.