On the day of Sant'Ambrogio, Milan's patron saint, the city turned on all the lights of its twenty-one symbolic trees distributed round the streets and squares. The impressive display of highly original Christmas Trees, designed by leading artists and sponsored by the Bracco Foundation, is the project of Marco Balich, organizer of worldwide large-scale events, such as last year's PanAmerican Games in Lima.
The trees are all highly symbolic, with names like “The Tree of Stars”, “The Tree of Tomorrow”, “The Trees of Games”, “The Tree of Music”, “The Golden Tree”, “The Whispering Tree” and so on. The “Tree of Gifts” in Piazza Duomo is sponsored by the Coca Cola company in support of the Banco Alimentare (Food Bank), which has collected over 2 million meals for the needy - only one of hundreds of similar non-profit organizations spread over the country attempting to tackle the problem of loss of income due to the pandemic.
The 21 artistic trees are in additional to the 45 live Xmas trees already distributed by the Milan city council, which will be removed afterwards to the city nursery.
