Gallerie d'Italia. Piazza Scala (the Intesa Sanpaolo bank museum complex at the intersection of the Piazza della Scala and Via Alessandro Manzoni in central Milan, housed in the historic palazzo complex (the Palazzo Anguissola-Antona Traversi and the adjacent Palazzo Brentani) whose specific 19th-century neoclassical and Lombard-baroque interiors are as significant as the collection they contain): the museum that the Intesa Sanpaolo banking group (the primary Italian bank by assets) created from the private art collection that the Banca Commerciale Italiana and its successor institutions assembled over 150 years, the most significant corporate art collection in Italy and the largest single private Italian collection of 19th-century Italian painting.
The specific Gallerie d'Italia Milano identity in the Milan museum landscape: the museum competes for visitor attention with the Pinacoteca di Brera (the primary Milan Old Master collection), the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana (the Leonardo Codex Atlanticus and the Raphael cartoon), and the Museo del Novecento (the 20th-century Italian art), all of which have substantially higher visitor numbers. The Gallerie d'Italia Milano receives approximately 120,000-150,000 visitors annually versus the Brera's 400,000, the specific undervisitation is the visitor's advantage: the Hayez and the Canova, in one of the most atmospheric 19th-century palazzo interiors in Milan, without the Brera's visitor pressure.
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Gallerie d'Italia Milano: The Collection and Visit
The Primary Works
Francesco Hayez (the primary Lombard Romantic painter, the specific Hayez collection at the Gallerie d'Italia is the most comprehensive single Hayez holding in any Italian museum): the Il Bacio (The Kiss, the 1859 Hayez oil painting of the couple kissing (the specific Romantic gesture that the 1859 date places in the context of the Second Italian War of Independence and the Risorgimento (the national unification movement) that the painting's specific imagery, the man in medieval dress, the woman in an attitude of both reception and departure, the implied farewell before the departure to fight, encodes in the romantic genre composition) that is the single most reproduced Italian 19th-century painting and the specific Hayez work that makes the Gallerie d'Italia visit worth the detour from the Brera circuit). The Hayez collection at the Gallerie d'Italia also includes the specific portraits (the Hayez portrait tradition, the Lombard aristocracy and the Risorgimento intellectual community), the historical paintings, and the Venetian-period early works that show the transition from the Neoclassical to the Romantic in the specific Lombard-Venetian context. Antonio Canova (the neoclassical sculpture, the specific Canova marbles (including the studies and the specific medium-scale works that the Gallerie d'Italia's Intesa collection holds alongside the primary Canova hubs at the Museo Canova in Possagno and the Borghese Gallery in Rome)): the Gallerie d'Italia Canova isn't the primary Canova collection in Italy but provides the most Milan-accessible direct encounter with the specific tactile quality of the Canova marble surface.
The Palazzo Interior
The Palazzo Anguissola-Antona Traversi (the neoclassical Milanese palazzo of the early 19th century, the specific interior (the frescoed ceilings (the mythological and allegorical fresco program by the specific Lombard neoclassical painters of the Appiani circle), the original stucco decoration, and the specific piano nobile (the main reception floor) sequence of rooms whose proportions and decoration represent the most completely preserved single example of the Lombard neoclassical residential interior accessible to the public in Milan): the specific Gallerie d'Italia palazzo experience (the combination of the architectural interior quality and the painting collection quality in a single visit) is the most specifically 19th-century Milan experience available in any Milan cultural institution. Open Tuesday-Sunday 9:30-19:30. Approximately €12. Free on the first Sunday of every month.
Q&A: Gallerie d'Italia Milano
How does the Gallerie d'Italia compare to the Pinacoteca di Brera?
Different collections with different strengths: the Brera (the primary Milan Old Masters collection, Raphael's Sposalizio della Vergine, Caravaggio's Cena in Emmaus, the Mantegna Cristo Morto) is the most important single Milan art museum and covers the 15th-18th centuries at the highest level. The Gallerie d'Italia covers the late 18th-19th centuries and the specific Lombard Romantic and Risorgimento period that the Brera's historical collecting priority (the Old Masters) left underrepresented. For the visitor interested in the Italian Romantic and the Risorgimento cultural context (the specific period that produced the Italian national identity): the Gallerie d'Italia is the primary Milan museum. For the visitor on a single Milan art day with time for one museum: the Brera is the primary choice. The ideal: both, on consecutive visits, with the Brera in the morning and the Gallerie d'Italia in the afternoon.
Internal Links
- Milano Arte: Brera e Gallerie d'Italia nel Circuito
- Milano in Inverno: I Musei Lontani dalla Folla
- Fotografare il Hayez: Il Bacio e la Luce
- Gallerie d'Italia: Gratis la Prima Domenica
- Milano: I Musei Sconosciuti del Centro
- Come Arrivare alle Gallerie d'Italia: Metro M1 Duomo
- Romanticismo Italiano: Hayez e il Risorgimento
