Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Museo Poldi Pezzoli is an art museum housed on Via Manzoni near Teatro alla Scala. Its unusual character comes from its beginning as a private home and collection: Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli and his mother, Rosa Trivulzio, assembled art there during the 19th century. The rooms were arranged to complement the works displayed in them, so the building and collection form a single experience rather than separate galleries.

Paintings from Northern Italy and the Netherlands and Flanders share the museum with weaponry, glass, ceramics, jewellery, and furnishings. Among the artists represented are Perugino, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Giovanni Bellini, Cranach, and Tiepolo. The palace interiors were reshaped by Luigi Scrosati and Giuseppe Bertini, while Simone Cantoni gave the palazzo its present Neoclassical form and an English-style interior garden.

Poldi Pezzoli left the house and its contents to the Brera Academy in his will, and Giuseppe Bertini opened the museum on 25 April 1881. Bombing during World War II severely damaged the building, but the artworks had already been moved to safety. Reconstruction led to reopening in 1951. The collection’s story is therefore visible both in its art and in the rooms created to hold it.