Between 1986 and 2004 five excavation campaigns were carried out in the courtyard of Milan’s
Università Cattolica, covering an overall area of circa 3500 m2. These investigations were undertaken by the Institute of Archaeology and the Società Lombarda di Archeologia on behalf of the Archaeological Superintendency of Lombardy.

The excavations investigated an area outside the Roman walls, situated in the town’s immediate south-western suburbium, between important roads, respectively that heading towards Novara and Vercelli, and those towards Pavia and Abbiategrasso. The earliest occupation, beginning in the second half of the 1st century B.C., was attested by agricultural activity followed by the construction of buildings that were subjected to continuous transformations and were finally abandoned towards the mid 2nd century A.D. At the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. a vast necropolis developed (circa 80 burials), remaining in use until the mid 5th century. Subsequently, the area seems to have been used for agricultural purposes once again, until the construction of the monastery of Sant’Ambrogio at the end of the 8th century, which must have determined changes in the landscape and spatial organization. With Bramante’s restructuring of the monastic complex the area finally took on the well defined architectural layout which is still visible in this part of the city. The excavations mainly investigated the areas to the south of Bramante’s monumental complex and already occupied by the service courtyards and surrounding cultivated land belonging to the monastery. In 1998 a small trench was dug in the reception courtyard examined an area close to the basilica of Sant’Ambrogio.