Milan Italy

 12 July 2024 - Milan Italy

Our last stop in Italy is Milan.  I chose to come here because I wanted to see Da Vinci’s Last Supper and the Duomo.  Milan is very modern compared to the rest of the places we visited in Italy.  It was bombed extensively during World War II because it was a commercial and railway center for northern Italy so a lot of the old Milan was destroyed.  Even so, it was a challenge to get around the modern city on my scooter - lots of places where there were no cutouts on sidewalks and I had to backtrack a block or so to be able to cross a street.  Entrances to almost all stores have steps with no alternatives for wheelchairs or scooters. We did have some very nice accessible guided tours so I think we got a good exposure to the city.  Weather was hot and humid for a couple days, reaching close to 100 degrees.  So I was glad when we had an overnight huge thunderstorm, including hail.  It brought the temp down to a reasonable level.

We spent a total of 89 days in Italy.  I am processing all the artwork and architectures that we saw.  Italy is truly unique - it feels like the whole country is an art museum.  So, so grateful I was able to see it and experience the culture.  Now on to London! Getting closer to home.

These Milan-built vehicles (Scoobics) are very popular. They are like a motor scooter with some protection from weather.  We saw them in all sorts of configurations for business use.

The Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele is a very popular high end shopping center.  It was built in the 1860s and is considered to be the oldest shopping center in the world.  The apartments were originally built as low-cost housing. But as time went by, it became a high rent district and the low income people were driven out. In World War II, it was bombed and part of it was destroyed.  It has been restored and how looks like a Rodeo Drive inside.

The Galleria forms one side of the plaza that includes the Duomo.

The Galleria used to include apartments, but these are now offices and extensions of the businesses below.

Built in a cross shape, the intersection showcases mosaics.

The floors of the intersection are beautiful mosaics.  This one, Toro de Turin, has a unique reputation - if you put your heel on the bull’s private parts and spin 3 times, you will return to Milan.  A hole has been worn into the mosaic over the years.

A 16th century palazzo with a pre-existing bell tower, now a clock tower. It was severely damaged in WWII, but was restored in the 1980s.

Canova’s ginormous Napoleon in the courtyard of the Brera Art Academy.  We spent several pleasant hours visiting the associated art museum, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. This is a bronze copy, the original sculpture is owned by the Duke of Wellington and is in his home in London.

 

Botticelli. There is a large focus on Leonard da Vinci since Milan was where he spent much of his life. But this art museum was intended, by Napoleon, to be the Louvre of Italy and he brought a lot of different art from the areas he conquered to here. Later, church art was donated as churches began to be closed.

We saw the completed School of Athens in the Raphael apartments at the Vatican.  This is a full scale cartoon drawing, done by Raphael before committing to painting the scene. It is the largest renaissance cartoon to survive.

When Leonard da Vince died, he left all his papers to a friend who compiled them into a book, Codex Atlanticus.  The museum had a gorgeous library room and some of the pages from the many thousands are displayed digitally.  This is a drawing for a parabolic compass.  He used every inch of every page to sketch his designs and write his thoughts. What a treasure!

Homage to Dante.

This is a working astronomical clock built from designs left by Leonard da Vinci.

Plaster cast of the bronze statue in the courtyard.  The face is modeled after Napoleon, the rest is supposed to be the god Mars.  Definitely, not Napoleon.

Pieta, by Bellini, a prominent Venetian painter.

This painting is important because it was the first time that Christ was painted from this perspective.  Perspective was an important element of Renaissance paintings, but it seems to me to be mostly about using perspectives of buildings and landscapes surrounding the subjects to create depth. I didn’t like this painting because I think the artist got something wrong in the scale of things.  

Bellini’s St Mark Preaching in Alexandria.

Tintoretto’s The Finding of the Body of St. Mark.  A group of Venetians stole his body from where he was buried in Alexandria and got it out of the city by hiding it beneath a load of pork meat.

Raphael’s The Marriage of the Virgin

Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus. 

Ruebens’ The Last Supper

Russ took a picture of this very scene on the day we toured the Grand Canal.  Very little has changed since the 1700s!

Restoration work is showcased in a room with glass walls.  You can walk all the way around and watch the restorers (when they aren’t at lunch!)

Duomo di Milan.  It was built in 1386 and was fully restored in 1965, after being damaged by a bomb in World War II. It is the largest church in Italy, since Saint Peter’s Basilica is in the Vatican which is a separate country.

The exterior has many embellishments, not sure what they all represented.

One of the embellishments is a bas-relief of the Tower of Babel. Our guide pointed it out while we were standing in the plaza surrounded by all nationalities speaking their native languages. 

The interior is dominated by the huge columns.

Altar of the Bishop of Milan

Statue of St. Bartholomew, carrying his skin (c. 1560s).

Each of the columns is topped by statues of people. The columns are brick and covered with marble.

There are over 50 huge stained glass windows, some dating from the late 1300s. Many were damaged in the bombing of WWII but have been restored.

We took a guided tour of the opera house, La Scala, and its museum. This is considered the most prestigious opera house in Italy.

We were very fortunate to sit in on a ballet rehearsal!

The museum was quite large and focused quite a bit on Maria Callas’ career. 

Some antique musical instruments.

Frank Liszt’s piano, built in the 1880s.  It is still played occasionally.

Verdi, one of Italy’s greatest opera composers. Our guide could not say enough nice things about Verdi and his generous nature.

Rossini, another great Italian opera composer. He retired early in his life and spent the last 40 years writing relatively little music.

Why I came to Milan. The Last Supper is not in a church, it is in the convent’s refectory.  Bombs severely damaged the convent in World War II, but this room was spared.

Da Vinci was experimenting with a new technique of painting, using oil and tempura. The colors started fading in his lifetime. The painting has gone through several restorations.  I read somewhere that none of da Vinci’s original paint remains.

On the opposite wall from The Last Supper is this beautiful painting by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, a Milan painter of the Renaissance. The colors in the fresco are still bright, even after 500 years.  

This is the church connected to the convent.  We weren’t able to tour because a private funeral was being conducted.

This is the Castello Sforzesco.  The Sforza family were the dukes of Milan and were the patrons of Leonardo da Vinci.

The medieval castle was built in the 15th century and was later enlarged in the 16th and 17th centuries.  It became one of the largest citadels in Europe.  It now is the home for several of Milan’s museums.

The inner courtyard was huge.  

When Leonard da Vinci lived in Milan, he spent a great deal of his time in this castle and had rooms where he worked on his inventions and paintings.

If you walk all the way through the castle and exit, you find a beautiful park with this gate.  It’s origins are a gate of the Roman walls of Milan, but this one (called Arch of Peace) was built in the 1800s.

Inside the castle is an art gallery.  The most famous piece is Michelangelo’s Pieta Rondanini.  It was the last piece he worked on and is unfinished. He was 88 at the time. Jesus’ face is not defined yet. Some say the statue, while unfinished, reflect’s Michelangelo’s evolved understanding of the moment when Mary tries to support her son’s dead body. She is no longer the young, serene Mary of the Pieta in St Peter’s Basilica, carved when he was 24.

This is a fascinating insight into how Michelangelo approached his work.  There are two arms here, he apparently changed his mind and hadn’t yet removed the unwanted one. Mary’s body is not yet separated from Jesus’.

Even in its unfinished state, it evoked a feeling of pain and deep sorrow. I found it to be a very emotional piece. 

Death mask of Michelangelo.

Our last stop was the Church of San Maurizio and Monastero Maggiore.  It was once attached to one of the most prominent female convents in the city.  Rich families would send their unmarried daughters there - it sounded a bit like a prison. This chapel is basically what is left and is part of the archeology museum for Milan. The guide told us this is Milan’s Sistine chapel because of all the ornate paintings.

The organ has beautifully painted doors which were originally kept closed to keep the pipes clean.  

This is part of the archeology museum. An ancient wall of the monastery.

On our way back to our hotel, near the Duomo, we saw some very nice garden apartments.

We passed the Basilica di Santo Stefano Maggiore, one of the oldest churches in Milan, but didn’t visit.

Statue of Leonardo da Vinci.

Loved this 30 or 40 foot tall needle and thread, built to honor Milan’s fashion industry.

We enjoyed our last gelato in Italy - chocolate for Russ, chocolate and pistachio for myself.