The paper explores the issue of the commemorative monuments designed by architects in Milan and analyzes works that, while declining a common theme, are different in terms of construction period, compositional logic and stylistic choices: from Luigi Cagnola to Giovanni Muzio, from BBPR (Gian Luigi Banfi, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti, Ernesto Nathan Rogers) to Piero Bottoni, up to Aldo Rossi there is a progressive evolution of the language in search of an alternative rhetoric. This study also provides an opportunity for a more general reflection on the architect's modus operandi in front of the possibility of measuring himself against an unusual project scale in terms of dimensions and implications which, in many cases,...