Description
The Archaeological Museum of Milan tells the story of Mediolanum, the Roman city that stood where Corso Magenta runs today. It is housed in the former Monastero Maggiore of San Maurizio, and the building is already an exhibit: walls, towers and the foundations of an ancient villa surface among the cloisters.
The visit begins with a large model at the entrance. It overlays today's Milan on the late-antique city, with Emperor Maximian's walls, the circus, the theater, the baths, the imperial palace and the waterways: it helps you work out where you are walking.
Then come the Roman rooms, on two levels: marble portraits, paintings, mosaics and more than 500 inscriptions, although only some are on display. A small section takes you much farther afield, to the art of Gandhara.
The most famous piece is the Trivulzio Diatretum Cup, from the fourth century: a glass vessel worked in openwork, like lace. Beside it stands out the Parabiago patera, a late-imperial silver dish showing the triumph of the goddess Cybele.
Also don't miss the Lovere Treasure, third-century silver tableware found in a tomb in 1907, and the marble portrait traditionally identified as Emperor Maximian Herculius, from around 300.
In the small building on Via Nirone the collections continue with the early medieval, Etruscan and Greek sections, one per floor. The prehistoric and Egyptian part, instead, is in the Castello Sforzesco.
But the surprise is in the cloister: a tower 14 meters high that was part of the circus's carceres, where the racing chariots started. In the thirteenth century it was believed to be the prison of the holy martyrs Nabor, Felix, Gervasius and Protasius. It was a mistake.
That is why its walls were covered with Giotto-inspired frescoes of saints, which today stand next to a contemporary sculpture by Domenico Paladino, donated by the artist.
The museum has ancient roots: it is the heir of the Museo Patrio Archeologico, founded in 1862, and of the Brera collection, born to save the finds from suppressed churches.
The visit begins with a large model at the entrance. It overlays today's Milan on the late-antique city, with Emperor Maximian's walls, the circus, the theater, the baths, the imperial palace and the waterways: it helps you work out where you are walking.
Then come the Roman rooms, on two levels: marble portraits, paintings, mosaics and more than 500 inscriptions, although only some are on display. A small section takes you much farther afield, to the art of Gandhara.
The most famous piece is the Trivulzio Diatretum Cup, from the fourth century: a glass vessel worked in openwork, like lace. Beside it stands out the Parabiago patera, a late-imperial silver dish showing the triumph of the goddess Cybele.
Also don't miss the Lovere Treasure, third-century silver tableware found in a tomb in 1907, and the marble portrait traditionally identified as Emperor Maximian Herculius, from around 300.
In the small building on Via Nirone the collections continue with the early medieval, Etruscan and Greek sections, one per floor. The prehistoric and Egyptian part, instead, is in the Castello Sforzesco.
But the surprise is in the cloister: a tower 14 meters high that was part of the circus's carceres, where the racing chariots started. In the thirteenth century it was believed to be the prison of the holy martyrs Nabor, Felix, Gervasius and Protasius. It was a mistake.
That is why its walls were covered with Giotto-inspired frescoes of saints, which today stand next to a contemporary sculpture by Domenico Paladino, donated by the artist.
The museum has ancient roots: it is the heir of the Museo Patrio Archeologico, founded in 1862, and of the Brera collection, born to save the finds from suppressed churches.