Selected Travel Guide:		More Milan Travel Guides:			Adjust Font Size:

Sightseeing Overview
Visitors are not normally drawn to Milan for its culture, which is a pity since the city center has many museums and a particularly good selection of world-class art exhibitions and individual pieces. Everybody has heard of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, now restored and in the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. However, the less famous Brera Gallery is an international treasure house (on a par with the Uffizi Gallery in Florence or London’s National Gallery) and Michelangelo’s last work, the extraordinary Pieta Rondanini, in the civic galleries of the Sforza Castle, is a surprise find for many of the city’s visitors.

Sightseeing is made easier by the proximity of attractions to the city’s duomo (cathedral). Visitors should not be afraid to explore on foot, ignoring the efficient transport services when time permits. The center has an attractive number of pedestrianized quarters where a cocktail of architectural styles (the grandeur of Imperial Austria, the grace of Renaissance Italy and the optimistic bravado of the belle époque) often stand shoulder to shoulder with the very modern, to stylish effect.

The pace of Milan can be unrelenting. Visitors embracing the invigorating tonic of city life will need to balance their time - as the Milanesi do. Urban romantics will enjoy wandering the southern stretch of the historic center, taking in the canal banks of the Naviglio Grande, where the old wash houses can still be seen, exploring the university district and the historic collection of basilicas Sant’Eustorgio and Sant’Ambrogio. The city parks, Parco Sempione and the Giardini Pubblici, are to the north and are pleasant for a break on a sunny day.

Tourist Information
Azienda Promozione Turistica del Milanese (APT)
Via Marconi 1
Tel: 02 7252 4301.
 Website: www.milanoinfo.eu
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 0845-1900, Sat 0900-1300 and 1400-1800, Sun 0900-1300 and 1400-1700 (winter); Mon-Fri 0830-2000, Sat 0900-1300 and 1400-1900, Sun 0900-1300 and 1400-1700 (summer).

There is another tourist information office in Stazione Centrale, Piazza Duca d’Aosta, on the first floor (tel: 02 7740 4318), open Mon-Sat 0800-1900, Sun 0900-1230 and 1330-1800.

Passes
The Welcome Card includes a one-day public transport pass, a short history of the city, a map of the city (including public transport routes), discount vouchers for selected shops and a CD compilation of classical music. Unfortunately, no discounts or free entrance to tourist sights are currently offered. The card is available from the tourist information office.

Key Attractions:

Duomo (Cathedral)
At the heart of the city, Milan’s Duomo is the world’s largest gothic cathedral, begun in 1386 and added to each century thereafter. The best time to visit is in bright sunshine, when the windows create a kaleidoscope of color 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. WWII bombs thankfully just missed the cathedral’s roof, which nests amid a majestic web of flying buttresses, spires and pinnacles. Above the forest of 135 spires and more than 3,400 statues, the small gilded copper statue of the Virgin, the ‘Madonnina’, erected in 1774, stands over the central lantern, 108.5m (119ft) above the city; the statue is lit at night. Visitors should take the lifts outside the apse to avoid climbing the 158 stairs. Il Museo del Duomo next door is well worth a visit.

Piazza del Duomo
Tel: 02 7202 2656.
Website: www.duomomilano.it
Opening hours: Daily 0700-1900.
Free admission (cathedral); charge (treasury and terrace).

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
Entered from the piazza in front of the cathedral, the glass-domed cruciform Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery is a vast belle époque shopping arcade. It was built to link the Piazza del Duomo to the Piazza della Scala and soon became Milan’s conservatory. Winter and summer, Milanesi can be seen here, escaping the rain, browsing the exclusive shops and sipping Campari and soda in the bars.

Piazza del Duomo
Opening hours: Daily 24 hours (shops, bars and restaurants close at various times).
Free admission.

Museo Teatrale alla Scala (Theater Museum at La Scala)
Opera lovers should visit this museum, crammed with rich mementoes of the celebrated opera house, La Scala. Two collections 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 honored alongside him.

Largo Ghiringhelli 1
Tel: 02 8879 2473.
Website: www.lascala.milano.it
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1230, 1330-1730.
Admission charge.

Santa Maria delle Grazie
The Last Supper (Il Cenacolo) is one of the most famous paintings in the world. Lodovico Sforza commissioned Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece (1495-97) 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 12 apostles are grouped into threes, Christ at the center, Judas (described by Vasari as a ‘study in perfidy’) to the right, his hand frozen on the bag of silver on the table. The positions of the figures are thought to relate to the signs of the Zodiac. 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).

Piazza Santa Maria delle Grazie 2, Corso Magenta
Tel: 02 8942 1146.
Website: www.cenacolovinciano.org  
Opening hours: Opening times vary; visits are limited to 15 minutes, in groups of 25; booking is mandatory and reservations are only accepted 60 days prior to visit (credit cards are not accepted).
Admission charge.

Museo d’Arte Antica del Castello Sforzesco (Museum of Historic Art of the Sforza Castle)
Three municipal museums compete for attention within the redbrick 15th-century 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 Rondanina, 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. Besides the combined Museum of Historic Art and the Pinacoteca del Castello (housing Italian painting from the 13th to 18th centuries), the other two museums, the Museum of Applied Arts (exhibiting wrought-iron work, ceramics, ivory and musical instruments), and the Archaeological Museum, are housed in the fortress (Rocchetta).

Piazza Castello
Tel: 02 8846 3700 (castle) or 3703 (museums)
Website: www.milanocastello.it
Opening hours: Castle daily 0700-1800 (winter), 0700-1900 (summer); museums daily 0900-1730.
Free admission (charge for museums).

Museo Poldi-Pezzoli (Poldi-Pezzoli Museum)
The Poldi-Pezzoli Museum’s varied and often exquisite collection of art, furnishings and historic arms was put together by the 19th-century aristocrat Gian Giocomo Poldi Pezzoli (1802-79). Milan’s favorite painting (after The Last Supper), Antonio Pollaiolo’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. The museum also hosts paintings by Andrea Mantegna and Sandro Botticelli.

Via Manzoni 12
Tel: 02 796 334.
Website: www.museopoldipezzoli.it
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 1000-1800.
Admission charge.

Museo Bagatti Valsecchi (Bagatti Valsecchi Museum)
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 15th and early 16th centuries, they furnished the rooms with their vast collections. The result is a fascinating insight into the mentality of 19th-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 and the exquisite majolica and Venetian crystal glassware.

Via Santo Spirito 10/Via Gesù 5
Tel: 02 7600 6132.
Website: www.museobagattivalsecchi.org
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 1300-1745; by appointment only in August.
Admission charge.

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 also not be overlooked.

Via Brera 28
Tel: 02 722 631.
Website: www.brera.beniculturali.it
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 0830-1930.
Admission charge.

Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnica Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo da Vinci National Science and 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) that illustrate da Vinci’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.
Website: www.museoscienza.org
Opening hours: Tues-Fri 0930-1700, Sat and Sun 0930-1830.
Admission charge.

Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna (Modern Art Gallery)
The Modern Art Gallery is a treat for lovers of 19th- and 20th-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. The gallery also holds numerous works by Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916), one of the founders of Futurism (approximately 1910).

Palazzo Reale, Via Palestro 16
Tel: 02 7600 2819.
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 0900-1730.
Free admission.

Further Distractions:

Basilica de Sant’Ambrogio
Built by Saint Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, the original basilica dates back to the fourth century. The three saints’ remains can be seen in a glass case under the main altar. The Sant’Ambrogio basilica (ninth-12th centuries) is one of Milan’s finest churches, a monumental building in the mature Lombard Romanesque style, retaining its early Christian basilica plan based on the architecture of ancient Rome. The Chapel of St Victor (Sacello di San Vittore in Ciel d’Oro), at the end of the south aisle, is a vaulted funerary chapel built in the church cemetery in the fourth century.

Piazza Sant’Ambrogio
Tel: 02 8645 0895.
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 0700-1200 and 1430-1900, Sun 1500-2000.
Website: www.santambrogio-basilica.it

Il Cimitèro Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery)
A few blocks east of Stazione Garibaldi, the Monumental Cemetery, opened in 1866, may appeal to romantic souls, happy to leave the bustle and grime of Milan’s quick and ponder Milan’s dead instead. Much of the funerary architecture is excellent art nouveau, celebrating the passing of Milan’s rich and famous, including Toscanini, novelist Alessandro Manzoni and poet Salvatore Quasimodo. The Palanti Chapel is more poignant, commemorating the 800 Milanesi killed in Nazi concentration camps.

Piazzale Cimitèro Monumentale 1
Tel: 02 659 9938.

Related Milan Content

Related Italy Content

Italy Airport Guides: Bologna G Marconi Milan Linate International Milan Malpensa Naples International Pisa International Airport Galileo Galilei Roma Ciampino Airport (Giovan Battista Pastine Airport) Rome Leonardo da Vinci (Fiumicino) Venice Marco Polo	Italy City Guides: Bologna City Guide Florence City Guide Milan City Guide Naples City Guide Palermo City Guide Rome City Guide Siena City Guide Turin City Guide Venice City Guide Verona City Guide
Italy Attraction Guides:
Colosseum (Colosseo) Doges' Palace (Palazzo Ducale) Florence Duomo (Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore) Leaning Tower of Pisa (Torre Pendente di Pisa) Mount Etna Old Bridge (Ponte Vecchio) Pantheon (Panteone) Pompeii Rialto Bridge	Roman Forum (Foro Romano) San Siro Stadium Siena Main Square (Piazza del Campo) Spanish Steps and Keats Shelley Memorial House St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) St Peter's Basilica (Basilica di San Pietro) Trevi Fountain (Fontana di Trevi) Uffizi Gallery (Galleria degli Uffizi) Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel (Musei Vaticani e Capella Sistina)