Description
The Museo Poldi Pezzoli is a house museum on Via Manzoni, a few steps from La Scala: the apartment of a 19th-century collector count, left as an art gallery. It is part of the "Case Museo di Milano" and brings together paintings, weapons, textiles, glass and goldsmith work, from Piero della Francesca to Botticelli and Canaletto.
The palace, formerly Moriggia, was bought by the Poldi Pezzoli family in 1800. Each room has its own era: Baroque, early Renaissance, Gothic. It is not a house to live in, but one designed to host paintings and furnishings, like a gallery.
The museum's symbol is Antonio del Pollaiolo's Portrait of a Lady. Among the other masterpieces are Botticelli's Madonna of the Book, and works by Mantegna, Bellini, Perugino, Piero della Francesca and Canaletto.
The collection does not stop at paintings. There are Pinturicchio, Filippo Lippi, Palma il Vecchio, Tiepolo, Ribera, Cranach the Elder and Luca Giordano, but also textiles, tapestries, glass, ceramics and goldsmith work: the count loved the applied arts as much as painting.
Among the sculptures are Trust in God, a masterpiece by Lorenzo Bartolini, and a carved wooden Marriage of the Virgin by Giovanni Angelo Del Maino.
The Dante Study, decorated between 1853 and 1856, was the count's private study. The decoration of many rooms was entrusted to Giuseppe Bertini, a painter and teacher at the Brera Academy.
The armory, the first room to be set up, was completed in 1850 in Neo-Gothic style. Today it has been redesigned by the sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. The monumental staircase, completed in 1857, was later enriched with a Baroque fountain.
In 1848 the young count Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli sided with the uprisings against the Austrians. When they returned he was fined and exiled. It was an exile well spent: for over a year he traveled around Europe, among collectors and great exhibitions.
He had inherited the palace and his mother Rosa Trivulzio's passion for art. He began with weapons and armor, then in great demand, and turned his apartment into something never seen before: a place that the public and artists came to see even then.
In his will the count left everything to a foundation, so that the collection would stay together forever. After his death it was his friend Bertini who ran the museum, which opened on April 25, 1881.
In August 1943 the bombs destroyed many original furnishings, but the works had already been put in safety. The museum reopened in 1951.
Don't miss
• Pollaiolo's Portrait of a Lady.
• Botticelli's Madonna of the Book.
• The Dante Study.
• The armory by Arnaldo Pomodoro.
Did you know?
• In Austrian Milan you came of age at 24: only then, in 1846, could the count lay hands on the family estate.
• Weapons and armor were the collector's first love: they were all the rage then.
The palace, formerly Moriggia, was bought by the Poldi Pezzoli family in 1800. Each room has its own era: Baroque, early Renaissance, Gothic. It is not a house to live in, but one designed to host paintings and furnishings, like a gallery.
The museum's symbol is Antonio del Pollaiolo's Portrait of a Lady. Among the other masterpieces are Botticelli's Madonna of the Book, and works by Mantegna, Bellini, Perugino, Piero della Francesca and Canaletto.
The collection does not stop at paintings. There are Pinturicchio, Filippo Lippi, Palma il Vecchio, Tiepolo, Ribera, Cranach the Elder and Luca Giordano, but also textiles, tapestries, glass, ceramics and goldsmith work: the count loved the applied arts as much as painting.
Among the sculptures are Trust in God, a masterpiece by Lorenzo Bartolini, and a carved wooden Marriage of the Virgin by Giovanni Angelo Del Maino.
The Dante Study, decorated between 1853 and 1856, was the count's private study. The decoration of many rooms was entrusted to Giuseppe Bertini, a painter and teacher at the Brera Academy.
The armory, the first room to be set up, was completed in 1850 in Neo-Gothic style. Today it has been redesigned by the sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. The monumental staircase, completed in 1857, was later enriched with a Baroque fountain.
In 1848 the young count Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli sided with the uprisings against the Austrians. When they returned he was fined and exiled. It was an exile well spent: for over a year he traveled around Europe, among collectors and great exhibitions.
He had inherited the palace and his mother Rosa Trivulzio's passion for art. He began with weapons and armor, then in great demand, and turned his apartment into something never seen before: a place that the public and artists came to see even then.
In his will the count left everything to a foundation, so that the collection would stay together forever. After his death it was his friend Bertini who ran the museum, which opened on April 25, 1881.
In August 1943 the bombs destroyed many original furnishings, but the works had already been put in safety. The museum reopened in 1951.
Don't miss
• Pollaiolo's Portrait of a Lady.
• Botticelli's Madonna of the Book.
• The Dante Study.
• The armory by Arnaldo Pomodoro.
Did you know?
• In Austrian Milan you came of age at 24: only then, in 1846, could the count lay hands on the family estate.
• Weapons and armor were the collector's first love: they were all the rage then.