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The first clue that this church is something apart is the lovely, elongated atrium between the entrance and the church, built from 1088 to 1099 using columns with 6th-century capitals depicting fantastical scenes.

The austere but balanced façade consists of five arches fitted under the peaked roof line. It is flanked by two mismatched towers: the Monks’ Tower on the right from the 9th century and the Canons’ Tower on the left from 1144.

Just on the inside of the third pier on the left stands a short column topped by a curlicue of a bronze serpent, a 10th-century Byzantine work (although local legend says it’s the serpent cast by Moses).

This limpid, late 15th-century Renaissance scene of the Risen Christ was originally positioned on the wall to the right of the altar (where its painted trompe-l’oeil architecture was far more suited). It was later removed and placed in the first chapel on the left.

This late Roman-era sarcophagus preceded the pulpit (No. 6) built around it. The tomb is aligned with the original walls, while the pulpit is aligned with the nave.

This composite of 11th- and early 12th-century Romanesque relief panels was rescued after the church ceiling collapsed in 1196 and reconstructed into this magnificent pulpit.

A master goldsmith, Volvinio, crafted the “golden altar” in 835. The Life of Christ is in gold leaf on the front, and the Life of St Ambrose in gilded silver on the back.

This altar canopy sits at the centre of the presbytery. Its four ancient Roman columns support a canopy of four 10th-century Lombard polychrome stucco reliefs.

The vast, colourful mosaic depicting Christ Pantocrater was largely pieced together between the 4th and 8th centuries, though bits were touched up or redone between the 17th and 20th centuries, especially after a 1943 bombing tore away half of Christ and the Archangel on the left.

Sant’Ambrogio was built next to a Paleochristian cemetery and a chapel decorated in the 5th century with a glittering dome of almost solid gold mosaics. The basilica grew to include the chapel and its ancient mosaics.