Description
The Museums of the Sforza Castle are Milan's civic collections, housed in the rooms of the Castello Sforzesco: paintings, sculptures, furniture, ceramics, musical instruments, archaeological finds. The most famous piece is Michelangelo's last sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà.
It is a long and varied route, best taken slowly. The Museum of Ancient Art, on the ground floor of the ducal court, occupies rooms decorated in the time of the Visconti and the Sforza and tells the story of Milanese and Lombard art from the late Roman age to the end of the 16th century.
Here are the equestrian monument to Bernabò Visconti and the funerary monument to Gaston de Foix, among the best-known pieces. Along the way you also come across the Sala delle Asse, frescoed by Leonardo da Vinci, and the Ducal Chapel, decorated by Bonifacio Bembo.
The Pinacoteca holds paintings from the Gothic to the 18th century: Filippo Lippi, Antonello da Messina, Mantegna, Titian, Correggio, Canaletto, Tiepolo and the great names of the Lombard school, such as Vincenzo Foppa and Cerano.
The castle also houses other museums: Prehistory, Egyptian, Musical Instruments, Furniture, Decorative Arts and the non-European collections. There is also the Numismatic Cabinet with Milan's coins and medals.
The Museum of Musical Instruments and the Furniture Museum show how people played music and lived in Milanese homes of the past. The Applied Art Collections bring together ceramics, ivories and precious objects.
Michelangelo worked on it until a few days before he died. When it was found in his studio, the inventory described it like this: "roughed out and unfinished". It arrived in Milan in 1952, bought by the City at the wish of Fernanda Wittgens, and since 2015 it has been on view in the old Spanish Hospital, in the Cortile delle Armi.
The display design also made history. In the 1950s and 1960s it was signed by the Milanese studio BBPR, between the restoration of the Cortile Ducale (1954-56) and that of the Rocchetta (1963), and it became a model for museum displays. Almost all of it is still as it was then.
In the inner courtyard, the portico built by the Sforza in 1473 is called "of the elephant" because of a fresco: originally there were other animals too, such as a lion of which only the paws remain.
Don't miss
• The Rondanini Pietà.
• The Sala delle Asse.
• The equestrian monument to Bernabò Visconti.
• The Ducal Chapel.
• The Pinacoteca.
Did you know?
• The writer Carlo Dossi donated his archaeological collection to the museum, on condition that a dedicated museum be created: those finds are still in storage.
• Under the Elephant Portico is a plaque from a house in Porta Ticinese, where the alleged plague-spreaders of the 1630 plague were executed.
It is a long and varied route, best taken slowly. The Museum of Ancient Art, on the ground floor of the ducal court, occupies rooms decorated in the time of the Visconti and the Sforza and tells the story of Milanese and Lombard art from the late Roman age to the end of the 16th century.
Here are the equestrian monument to Bernabò Visconti and the funerary monument to Gaston de Foix, among the best-known pieces. Along the way you also come across the Sala delle Asse, frescoed by Leonardo da Vinci, and the Ducal Chapel, decorated by Bonifacio Bembo.
The Pinacoteca holds paintings from the Gothic to the 18th century: Filippo Lippi, Antonello da Messina, Mantegna, Titian, Correggio, Canaletto, Tiepolo and the great names of the Lombard school, such as Vincenzo Foppa and Cerano.
The castle also houses other museums: Prehistory, Egyptian, Musical Instruments, Furniture, Decorative Arts and the non-European collections. There is also the Numismatic Cabinet with Milan's coins and medals.
The Museum of Musical Instruments and the Furniture Museum show how people played music and lived in Milanese homes of the past. The Applied Art Collections bring together ceramics, ivories and precious objects.
Michelangelo worked on it until a few days before he died. When it was found in his studio, the inventory described it like this: "roughed out and unfinished". It arrived in Milan in 1952, bought by the City at the wish of Fernanda Wittgens, and since 2015 it has been on view in the old Spanish Hospital, in the Cortile delle Armi.
The display design also made history. In the 1950s and 1960s it was signed by the Milanese studio BBPR, between the restoration of the Cortile Ducale (1954-56) and that of the Rocchetta (1963), and it became a model for museum displays. Almost all of it is still as it was then.
In the inner courtyard, the portico built by the Sforza in 1473 is called "of the elephant" because of a fresco: originally there were other animals too, such as a lion of which only the paws remain.
Don't miss
• The Rondanini Pietà.
• The Sala delle Asse.
• The equestrian monument to Bernabò Visconti.
• The Ducal Chapel.
• The Pinacoteca.
Did you know?
• The writer Carlo Dossi donated his archaeological collection to the museum, on condition that a dedicated museum be created: those finds are still in storage.
• Under the Elephant Portico is a plaque from a house in Porta Ticinese, where the alleged plague-spreaders of the 1630 plague were executed.