In 1949 Enrico Mattei, a legendary Italian self-made man started managing SNAM.
Within a decade he helped the company increase and manage the methane pipelines, generating such a development as to require a management and maintenance center, besides a traction compressed gas station close to Milan.

The San Donato Milanese territory was chosen as prevalently made up of rotten agricultural land that was therefore purchased at a low cost, located at the entrance of Via Emilia and further away from the main national highway, 3 km. from the railway station of Rogoredo, close to Linate airport, near Milan, and halfway between the areas where the Po Valley methane is extracted and the blast furnaces of Sesto San Giovanni are located.
The first team involved in the production was created and Mattei realized that the flow of workers, employees and executives was not compatible with the lack of housing in Milan, considering the rise in population and the signs of how the war had destroyed the city still evident.
Assigning the architect Mario Bacciocchi to design the first homes for the workers solved the housing problem. The purpose was to favour a sense of belonging to the company, with a place where they could live, produce and reduce the time needed to commute. Mattei and Bacciocchi were called “the prince and the architect” and the designer too decided to call it “Metanopoli”.
While buildings were made for working, at the same time the “waspish waist” homes of Vittorio Gandolfi were created, rotating 45 or 60 degrees with respect to the roads; the “V” shaped buildings designed by Nizzoli and Olivari that also collaborate with Annibale Fiocchi for “homes in line”; the “buildings for executives” featured by arcades and designed by Bacciocchi.
As soon as the initial idea of a “hotel-village” was overcome, the need to provide the new urban entity with public services was realized, such as a school, the sports fields of Bacigalupo and Ratti, the church of Bacciocchi and that of Gardella, the shopping center. The Church of Santa Barbara Vergine e Martire, overlooking the very wide square called after the same name, with its ample parvis and cut along the main road system of Via Cavriaga/Via Piadena out of respect for the Milanese tradition that is not a background to a street or road: it is only discovered upon arrival and located in the center of the modern and elegant Metanopoli neighborhood where the management center of the ENI companies are located and where the Autostrada del Sole highway begins, right at the Melegnano toll station.
Enrico Mattei, ENI’s founder wanted the church and it was designed by Bacciocchi. The church began to function at the end of 1955, becoming the provost parish headquarters on June 15, 1963, as decreed by Cardinal Archbishop Giovambattista Montini who only six days later was elected Pope with the name of Paul VI and that was considered one of the most forthcoming and receptive popes with regards to art and culture in general.
The outside walls are smooth, essential and divided into panels with marmoreal decorations in soft colors, on geometric designs, for a facade that can be traced back to the multicolored Tuscan cathedrals.
With the spires that are certainly related to the Milanese Cathedral, a saddleback roof was erected with a thin bell tower covered in natural stone, 45 meters in height on the right, and on the left side an octagonal baptistery placed at some distance. In the interior, a single nave, a long balcony runs along the side walls on which the chapels open. The enormous “Crucifixion”, a masterpiece, dominates an ample woman’s gallery by the painter Fiorenzo Tomea that takes up the absolutely flat background of the centre nave. This mosaic was not directly created on a vertical surface, a 700 square meters wall, but rather is made up by modules created on the ground and then assembled and is very well illuminated by the skylight above whose rays are bright and radiant in the light blue sky that covers the event. In front of the mosaic we find a window by Rizzo with the Resurrection of our Lord as its theme that completes the representation of the paschal mystery.
The decoration on the ceiling is by Andrea Cascella and is made up by panels with early Christian stylized images, not bordered by frames to avoid the “lacunar” effect that would have disturbed the rational design on a whole. Your eyes are also transported by a peace that towers over every human burden, they run along to the decorations on the altar, early works by Arnaldo and Giò Pomodoro, that is a tabernacle in ancient wood with little sculptured copper panels, and the two massive candelabras.
The same altar of the presbyteral area is imposing and covered by gold venetian mosaic; underneath this there is a yellow-orange marble arch inside of a bronze pattern, the relic of Saint Barbara.
The great Via Crucis placed on the side walls is made up by fourteen bronze figures sculptured by Pericle Fazzini. In the right hand chapels, four actually, in succession we find: a wooden bas-relief of Saint Joseph by Ilario Rossi, three bronze statues by Perez (a Sacred Heart of Jesus), a Saint Francesco and Saint Catherine) and the painting of the “Madonna with child among the Angels” by Bruno Cassinari. In the left hand chapels, in the second we find a “Saint Anthony that preaches to the frogs” in panels painted by Gentilini, in the third a planispheric canvas with Saint Barbara painted by Boccardo, in a triumph of orange colored skies immersed in a sequence of heavenly skies.
A wooden sculpture representing the Madonna with child by Melzi faces the flight of steps that lead to the presbytery; while the ambo has an enamel on copper by Cappello.
A large number of modern artists have been called by Mattei to work on the church of Metanopoli, with a sort of patronage that is rather rare in the Italian twentieth century and has no precedence. In fact a unique feature of this church by Bacciocchi is having conceived the whole design, from the plan itself to the equipment of the altar, as something unique, considering the temple a privileged place to capture various forms of art in a harmonious synthesis. It should be remembered that the law in force only provides 2% of the whole expense for the building’s equipment and Mattei’s largesse appears to be an absolute novelty in endowing the patron saint’s temple with such a conspicuous and prestigious amount of art works.
The statue of the saint welcomes you upon arrival, placed on the edge of the church’s vast flight of steps almost without a podium, sculptured by Caron in which a balance of the choice of abstract shapes and reference to the human figure are found.
The history of the patron saint can be read in the sculptured panels of the central entrance door by the sculptor Pomodoro, while the scene of the saint’s martyrdom are found in the side doors by Emilio Greco. In the sacristy, in the parish home and in the baptistery other important works can be found and during Christmas time it is also possible to admire a nativity scene with wooden statues by the sculptor Eugenio Tomiolo.
(traslat.by Interpres)