The museum had its beginnings in 1913 with the acquisition of a private collection comprising objects that had belonged to musicians, performers and spectators; musical instruments, paintings and sketches. Temporary exhibitions are often held here. From the museum it is possible to gain access to the theatre boxes and admire the inside of the beautiful Teatro alla Scala.
The Milanese nobleman Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli (1822-1879) left his palazzo and his collections to the state. Decorative artworks sit side by side with canvases by the greats of Italian and international painting.
The Pinacoteca is housed in the Palazzo dell'Ambrosiana, commissioned by Federico Borromeo (1605) to contain the first public library in Europe, which to this day is home to Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus and an Academy of Painting.
The collection in the Museo del Novecento is one of the most important collections of 20th-century Italian art in existence and is made up of more than 400 works, displayed chronologically from Volpedo’s Il Quarto Stato of 1902 to the section on Arte Povera.
The Fondazione Prada, presided over by business giants Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, is an institution dedicated to contemporary art and culture. It currently has two venues, Milan and Venice. The Milan section was inaugurated in 2015 in the vast spaces formerly occupied by a distillery dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.
The splendid “salon” of the Milanese captivates visitors from all over the world with its elegant glass and iron roof and its exclusive shops and restaurants. The Galleria was inaugurated in1865 by Victor Emanuel II, the first King of Italy, to whom it is dedicated.
A majestic building constructed in Candoglia marble and which took centuries to complete. Building began on the apse at the end of the fourteenth century, during the years of Visconti rule, and finished in the twentieth century with the installation of the bronze doors.
A stone’s throw from Piazza Duomo, Piazza dei Mercanti was the centre of city life in medieval times, counting among its buildings the Broletto, seat of the city government. A sixteenth-century well in the middle of the square survives to this day.
A stroll down Via Montenapoleone cannot be missed if you want to admire the enticing shop windows of famous fashion brands and soak in the atmosphere of this exclusive shopping district. It is a quadrangle of streets with beautiful half-hidden courtyards and some of the most elegant historical buildings in the city.
Leonardo was born in Tuscany and then moved to Milan, where he spent almost twenty years at the court of Ludovico il Moro, devising projects and producing masterpieces of art. It is possible to admire his works and visit many of the places around the city where his influence on the history and culture of Milan is still keenly felt.