contributions to the construction of the basilica church were made by the and Vismara families, two of the oldest families in Legnano. The cornerstone was laid on 4 May 1504 and construction was finished on 6 June 1513. The decoration of the basilica church's interior began shortly thereafter with the frescoes of Gian Giacomo Lampugnani on the main dome. The church received its first two bells in 1510. The next year, however, on 11 December 1511, Legnano was razed and sacked Swiss soldiers, then fighting for the during the War of the League of Cambrai. The church was also damaged; the scaffolding on its exterior was incinerated. Writing about the construction of the basilica church, Agostino Pozzi, the provost of Legnano, reported in the Storia delle chiese di Legnano: Work on the church was suspended from 1516 to 1523, for two reasons. The second was that funding for the church had ceased; the primary donors, the local nobility, were made destitute after the French drove the Sforzas from the Duchy of Milan in 1499 and subsequent fighting. That poverty among the nobility was also the author of much administrative disruption in Legnano, as they fought to hold onto their possessions within the Duchy. Compounding all these difficulties was a disinterest in Legnano by the Archbishop of Milan, who began withdrawing holy orders from the area. This had been provoked by the loss of the rebellious tendencies 's , and thus the need for ducal troops in Legnano. The original plans of the basilica have been lost and therefore no documents bearing the signature of its architect. Bramante's name, in fact, appears only in later written testimonies. The design of the basilica of San Magno was probably carried out by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo or his follower Tommaso Rodari on a design by Donato Bramante. The proof that assigns the authorship of the drawings to the famous artist is contained in a writing of 1650 by Agostino Pozzo, provost of San Magno, which reads: The first document that mentions Donato Bramante as an architect of the basilica of San Magno is instead a text by Federico Borromeo, then archbishop of Milan, which is connected to his pastoral visit to Legnano in 1618, an excerpt of which states: The construction was then directed by an unnamed master, and Legnano's most experienced artist, Gian Giacomo Lampugnani. Gian Giacomo was a distant relative of ,