Giardini pubblici Indro Montanelli, Milan

Giardini pubblici Indro Montanelli is a historic public park, established in 1784 and regarded as Milan’s oldest city park. Its earliest design came from architect Giuseppe Piermarini, who laid out geometric flower beds and long, tree-lined paths for striking views through the grounds. Later expansion brought a more natural landscape, with artificial hills, streams, and ponds shaped by Giuseppe Balzaretto from 1856 to 1862.

As you follow the paths, the Natural History Museum and the Ulrico Hoepli Planetarium become part of the park’s story: the museum dates from 1888 to 1893, and the planetarium opened in 1930. The grounds also preserve the memory of Indro Montanelli, the journalist and writer after whom they were renamed in 2002. His statue shows him at a typewriter, near the place where the Brigate Rosse shot him in the legs on June 2, 1977.

Montanelli regularly spent time here before going to work at his newspaper, Il Giornale. The park’s scale and layered design let you move from formal avenues to a landscape of water and raised ground, while its monuments keep that personal history close at hand.