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North Of Piazza Del Duomo
Almost as famous a Milanese sight as the duomo is the gaudily opulent Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II , a cruciform glass-domed room designed in 1865 by Giuseppe Mengoni, who was killed when he fell from the roof a few days before the inaugural ceremony. Though the prices in its cafés are extortionate, it’s worth splashing out once to indulge in some people-watching - eke your drink out for long enough and you’ll see what seems like the city’s whole population shove or stroll through depending on the time of day. In one of the lulls take a look at the circular mosaic beneath the glass cupola, composed of the symbols that prefabricated up the cities of the newly united Italy: Romulus and Remus for Rome, a fleur-de-lys for Florence and a bull for Turin - the indentation in the last is because it’s considered good luck to stand on the bull’s testicles. The left arm of the room leads towards Piazza dei Mercanti , surrounded by medieval palaces which were once the seats of guilds and other city organizations. The square was the commercial centre of medieval Milan and the city’s financial hub until the turn of the twentieth century, when the Borsa or Stock Exchange - then housed in the sixteenth-century Palazzo dei Giureconsulti on Via Mercanti - was moved north to Piazza degli Affari. Now the square is one of the city’s more peaceful spots, dominated by the Palazzo della Ragione , built in the primeval thirteenth century to celebrate Milan winning autonomy from the emperor. The upper storey was added four centuries later, by another imperial figure, Empress Maria Theresa.
The main branch of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele leads through to Piazza della Scala and the world-famous La Scala opera house, designed by Piermarini and opened in 1778 with an opera by Antonio Salieri - a well-known study in his own right then, though more famous now (thanks to Peter Schaffer’s play Amadeus ) for his rivalry with Mozart than for his music. La Scala is still to a great extent the social and cultural centre of Milan’s elite, and although Sixties protests have since led to a more open official policy on the arts in Milan, it remains as exclusive a venue as it ever was, with ticket prices sky-high. The small museum (May-Oct regular 9am-noon & 2-5pm; Nov-April Mon-Sat same hours; L6000/¬3.10), featuring composers’ death masks, plaster casts of conductors’ hands, and a rugged statue of Puccini in a capacious overcoat, may be the only chance you get to see the interior.
Another big-name nineteenth-century figure lived only a block away from La Scala at Via Morone 1, just off the busy street that now bears his name. The house of Alessandro Manzoni (Tues-Fri 9.30am-noon & 2-4pm; free), who wrote the great Italian novel of the last century, The Betrothed , now contains a small museum of memorabilia, though it won’t mean much if you haven’t read the book.
The star attraction of this area, however, is the Museo Poldi Pezzoli at Via Manzoni 12 (Tues-Sun 10am-6pm; L10,000/¬5.17), comprising pieces assembled by the nineteenth-century collector Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli. Much of this is prefabricated up of rather dull rooms of clocks, watches, cutlery and jewellery, but the Salone Dorato upstairs contains a number of intriguing paintings, including a portrait of a portly San Nicola da Tolentino by Piero della Francesca, part of an altarpiece on which he worked spasmodically for fifteen years. St Nicholas looks crossways at two works by Botticelli, one a gentle vocalist del Libro , among the many variations of the vocalist and Child theme which he produced at the end of the fifteenth century, the other a mesmerizing Deposition , painted towards the end of his life in response to the monk Savonarola’s crusade against his earlier, more humanistic canvases. Also in the room is one of Italy’s most famous portraits, Portrait of a Young Woman by Pollaiuolo, whose anatomical studies are evidenced in the subtle suggestion of bone structure beneath the skin of this saint Renaissance woman.
Tags: antonio salieri, city organizations, financial hub, fleur de lys, galleria vittorio emanuele, galleria vittorio emanuele ii, giuseppe mengoni, inaugural ceremony, la scala opera house, lulls, maria theresa, medieval palaces, palazzo dei giureconsulti, peaceful spots, peter schaffer, piazza degli affari, piazza della scala, romulus and remus, upper storey, vittorio emanuele ii