Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Best
Art
Milan's museums contain collections from the early Renaissance to the neoclas-
sical. What's more, you can often linger with a Bellini or Caravaggio without the
usual crowds, even in Milan's most famous gallery, the Brera Pinacoteca. The city
is also a treasure trove of 20th-century art. At the Museo del Novecento, the work
of Futurists Umberto Boccioni and Giacomo Balla is, a hundred years on, still
shockingly fresh.
Painter at Court
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) arrived in Milan from the Medici court in 1482,
seeking the patronage of Ludovico Sforza, who was attempting to remake Milan as
the perfect city. From his
Portrait of a Young Man
(c 1486) and portraits of
Ludovico's mistresses,
The Lady with the Ermine
(c 1489) and
La Belle Ferronière
(c 1490), Leonardo transformed the rigid conventions of portraiture to depict indi-
vidual images imbued with effortless naturalism. Then he evolved concepts of
idealised proportions and the depiction of internal emotional states (
St Jerome
; c
1488), which cohered in his masterpiece
Il Cenacolo
, which expresses the reac-
tions of the Apostles to Christ's announcement that one will betray him.
Modern Italians
With the opening of the Museo del Novecento in 2010, Milan finally got the 20th-
century art museum it deserved. Its galleries showcase an extraordinary collection
of Italian painting, including the 19th-century Divisionists, the dynamism of Fu-
turism and the 1960s Arte Povera movement. Other noteworthy collections can be
found in Villa Necchi Campiglio, the Jesi Collection at the Pinacoteca di Brera and
the Casa Museo Boschi-di Stefano.
