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City Guide  - Milan  - Key Attractions
Key Attractions

Duomo (Cathedral)

At the heart of the city, Milan's Cathedral is the world's largest Gothic cathedral, begun in 1386 but added to each century thereafter. The best time to visit is in bright sunshine, when the windows create a kaleidoscope of colour through the cavernous interior. St Charles Borromeo, its most important benefactor, lies buried at its heart. A champion of the Counter Reformation, he commissioned the wooden choir, many of the statues and the nivola, the peculiar basket that is used in one of Milan's stranger ceremonies. Twice a year (May and September), Milan's most important relic, a nail from the cross of Christ, which has been displayed over the high altar since 1461, is brought down by the bishop who is hoisted up there in the nivola. Visitors should explore the underground octagonal chamber where Borromeo is buried (Lo Scurolo di San Borromeo) and the adjacent Treasury.

Bombs thankfully just missed the Cathedral's roof, which nests amid a majestic web of flying buttresses, spires and pinnacles. Above the forest of statues (there are over 2000), the small gilded copper statue of the Virgin, the 'Madonnina', erected in 1774, stands over the central lantern, 108.5m (119ft) above the city. Visitors should take the lifts outside the apse to avoid climbing the 158 stairs. On a clear day, the view north extends as far as the Alps.

Piazza del Duomo 18
Tel: (02) 72 02 26 56.
Web site: www.chiesacattolica.it/santuarii/mi-duomo0.htm
Transport: Metro Duomo; bus 2, 3, 8, 15, 18 or 19.
Opening hours: Daily 0700-1900.
Admission: Free (Cathedral); L2000 (Treasury); L9000 (terrace by lifts); L6000 (terrace by stairs).

Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II

Entered from the Piazza in front of the Cathedral, the glass-domed cruciform Vittorio Emmanuele II Gallery is a civilised place to meet someone or for the weary visitor to rest in. The vast Belle Epoque shopping arcade was built to link the Piazza del Duomo to the Piazza della Scala and soon became Milan's conservatory. Winter and summer, Milan can be seen here, escaping the rain, browsing the exclusive shops and sipping campari and soda in the bars.

Museo Teatrale alla Scala (Theatre Museum at La Scala)

Opera lovers should visit this museum, crammed with rich mementos of the celebrated opera house, La Scala. Two halls are devoted to Milan's darling Verdi, whose 'Slaves Chorus' from Nabucco remains the unofficial Italian anthem. Memorabilia include the spinet on which he learned to play, scores in his own hand and the jewel-encrusted baton presented to him after the triumphal reception of Aida. Rossini, Puccini and Toscanini are honoured alongside.

Piazza della Scala
Tel: (02) 805 3418.
Web site: www.lascala.milano.it
Transport: Metro Duomo or Montenapoleone; tram 1, 2 or 27; bus 50, 58, 61 or 73.
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1200 and 1400-1700; closed Sun Nov-Apr. For those attending the opera, the museum remains open until 2300.
Admission: L6000.

Santa Maria delle Grazie

The Last Supper
(1495-97) is one of the most famous paintings in the world. Lodovico Sforza commissioned Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece for the refectory adjoining the Dominican church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The painting depicts the moment of Christ's revelation of the betrayal. The twelve apostles are grouped into threes, Christ at the centre, Judas (described by Vasari as a 'study in perfidy') to the right, his hand frozen on the bag of silver on the table.
Over the years, paint flaked off because Leonardo applied it directly to dry plaster (fresco secco) instead of bonding the pigments with wet plaster (buon fresco). Controversy rages over the recent removal of layers of corrective overpainting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Despite deterioration, the painting is lucky to have survived (a bomb destroyed the refectory roof in 1943), and when first seen, the experience is quite unforgettable.

Piazza Santa Maria delle Grazie 2, Corso Magenta
Tel: (02) 89 42 11 46.
Transport: Metro Cadorna; tram 20, 24, 29 or 30.
Opening hours: Tues-Fri and Sun 0815-1845, Sat 0815-2215. Visits are limited to 15 minutes, in groups of 20. Booking is mandatory and reservations are only accepted 60 days prior to visit.
Admission: L12,000 + L2000 reservation fee.

Museo d'Arte Antica del Castello Sforzesco (Museum of Historic Art of the Sforza Castle)

Three municipal museums compete for attention within the redbrick Sforza Castle on the edge of the Parco Sempione, but the most venerable is the Museum of Historic Art. Visitors come to see Michelangelo's last work, the unfinished Pietà Rondanini, depicting the Virgin cradling the body of Christ, which was bought by the museum in 1952. The sculpture's rough surface and abstract sinuosity is strikingly modern. Upstairs, above the extensive sculpture galleries, there is a large collection of paintings, including notable works by Mantegna, Antonello da Messina and Leonardo da Vinci.

Piazza Castello
Tel: (02) 62 08 31 91.
Transport: Metro Cairoli or Cadorna; bus 43, 57 or 70; tram 1, 4, 12, 14, 20 or 27.
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 0930-1730.
Admission: Free.

Museo Poldi-Pezzoli

The Poldi-Pezzoli Museum's varied and often exquisite collection of art, furnishings and historic arms was put together by the nineteenth-century aristocrat, Poldi Pezzoli. Milan's favourite painting, after the Last Supper, Antonio Pollaiuolo's Portrait of a Lady hangs here. The profile portrait of an elegant and well-attired lady has since become an icon for Milan's own style and elegance.

Via Manzoni 12
Tel: (02) 794 889.
E-mail: museopoldipezzoli-iscali@net.it
Transport: Metro Duomo or Montenapoleone.
Opening hours: Tues-Fri 1000-1800.
Admission: L10,000.

Museo Bagatti Valsecchi

The Palazzo Bagatti Valsecchi, built by two brothers in 1883 as their ideal Renaissance household, was only opened as a museum in 1994. Avid collectors of antiques from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, they furnished the rooms with their vast collections. The result is a fascinating insight into the mentality of nineteenth-century Milan, which had just recovered its independence, nostalgically looking back to the days of the Sforza. Highlights of the collection include the fine painting of Santa Giustina by Bellini, the exquisite majolica and Venetian crystal glassware.

Via Gesù 5
Tel: (02) 76 00 61 32.
E-mail: info@museobagattivalsecchi.org
Web site: www.museobagattivalsecchi.org
Transport: Metro Montenapoleone or San Babila; bus 54, 61 or 73 to San Babila; bus 94 to Piazza Cavour; tram 1 to Via Manzoni.
Opening hours: Tues-Sat 1300-1700.
Admission: L10,000 (L5000 on Wed).

Pinacoteca di Brera (Brera Picture Gallery)

Napoleon, whose statue by Canova stands in the courtyard, opened the Brera Picture Gallery in 1809, a collection that was enriched with objects confiscated on his Italian campaigns. Formerly a Jesuit Academy of Science, the Brera's name comes from the meadows in which it once stood. The collection is best known for its Venetian and Lombard masters. Particularly fine are the lyrical Pietà by Giovanni Bellini, depicting the death of Christ, and Mantegna's virtuoso treatment of the same subject, the body foreshortened and viewed from the soles upward. Tintoretto's gruesome depiction of the spirit of St Mark hovering over his cadaver, appearing to the Venetian merchants in the gloom of the Alexandrian catacombs, is hard to miss. Raphael's Wedding of the Madonna and two rare works by the enigmatic Piero della Francesca should not be missed. The Baroque masterpieces include Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus, dramatically staging the New Testament scene in a pool of light.

Via Brera 28
Tel: (02) 89 42 11 46.
Transport: Metro Cairoli or Lanza or Montenapoleone; tram 1, 4, 8, 12, 14 or 27; bus 61 or 97.
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 0830-1915; Jun-Sep until 2300 on Sat.
Admission: L8000.

Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnica Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo da Vinci National Science & Technology Museum)

In the city of the Last Supper, interest in the creative genius of Leonardo da Vinci is understandable. Most visitors come to this museum, devoted to the history of science, to see the Leonardo Gallery, with its host of models, both static and functioning, which illustrate the man's intuitive genius. His designs for war machines, flying machines, architecture and production awaken admiration for a man whose ideas, even when not 100% successful (such as the rotating screw, claimed as a precursor to the helicopter), display incredible foresight.

Via San Vittore 21
Tel: (02) 485 551.
E-mail: info@museoscienza.org
Web site: www.museoscienza.org
Transport: Metro San Ambrogio; bus 50 or 58.
Opening hours: Tues-Fri 0930-1650, Sat and Sun 0930-1820.
Admission: L12,000.

Civica Galleria d'Arte Moderna
(Modern Art Gallery)

The Modern Art Gallery is a treat for lovers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, housed in Napoleon's former summer palace on the edge of the Giardini Pubblici. The extensive collection covers neo-classicism to the modern day. The Impressionists are well represented in the Grassi collection on the second floor, with works by Bonnard, Cézanne, Corot, Renoir, Sisley and Vuillard.

Villa Reale, Via Palestro 16
Tel: (
02) 76 00 28 19.
Transport: Metro Palestro
; tram 1 or 2; bus 94.
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1730.
Admission: Free.



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