For Milan Design Week 2025, the small cloister and the Sacristy of Santa Maria delle Grazie are illuminated with a new light thanks to Graffito di Luce, an installation by architect Luca Trazzi in collaboration with F.A.N. Europe Lighting. We interviewed him, but in this article, you’ll find all the details about the installation — a project that deeply impressed us and opens up a space never before showcased during Design Week.

The starting point is a hidden and nearly forgotten detail: a decorative wall graffito depicting small flowers, etched into the plaster of the cloister. From this, a contemporary interpretation is born, one that reimagines the Renaissance space designed by Donato Bramante between 1492 and 1497 through light.

The installation consists of eight golden, lightweight radial lamps that create luminous pathways across the different areas: circular under the porticoes, starry in the garden, and linear in the sacristy. The result is a map of visual geometries and light vibrations that transform the spaces into places to be observed and crossed slowly.

At the heart of the cloister, an ancient fountain becomes the focal point of the intervention. From the center of the basin rises a column of light that opens like an umbrella, evoking a tree of life or a spring. A form that blends into the architecture and engages in dialogue with the vegetation, columns, and evening shadows, creating a visual and poetic landscape.

Despite the symbolic references to the number eight — recurring in the lamp arrangement and a tribute to Bramante’s mathematical and proportional language — Trazzi’s project never imposes itself as a spiritual statement. Instead, it is an aesthetic gesture, a luminous caress that enhances the existing structure with respect and lightness.

Graffito di Luce is the natural evolution of the work the architect has already done for Santa Maria delle Grazie, having previously designed the exterior lighting of the building. Here, however, the tone becomes more intimate and playful, maintaining a formal delicacy that celebrates history without making it rigid, turning each step into a small moment of discovery.