GOLDEN AGE MILAN

Turn back the wheels of time and plunge into the glories of Renaissance Milan on a private tour of two of the city’s most representative, popular and cherished landmarks.

First built as a defensive fortress in 1368, during the rule of Lord Galeazzo II Visconti, the castle was grandiosely reconstructed, furnished and embellished in the second half of the 1400s by Francesco Sforza and his successors. As discerning art patrons, the powerful Sforza rulers called upon the most prominent artists and architects of the times to decorate and fortify the magnificent princely residence and display through its grandeur the prestige of their dynasty. Leonardo Da Vinci, the multi-talented genius himself, worked here as a military engineer and painter, designing the castle’s defences and painting a symbolic celebration of Ludovico Sforza on the ceiling of the Sala delle Asse. Used as military barracks during the four centuries of Milan’s foreign occupation, the castle underwent sieges, demolitions and reconstructions until it was finally restored at the end of the 1800s with the aim of reviving the feats of its Renaissance owners.

Today the iconic, red-brick Sforza Castle houses seven specialised art museums which preserve fascinating fragments of Milan’s centuries-old history, including prehistoric artefacts, musical instruments, weapons and period furniture, as well as archives and libraries. Not to be missed are the Museo d’Arte Antica, featuring marble statues, bas-reliefs, architectural structures and funerary monuments from the 5th century to the Renaissance and the Pinacoteca, displaying works by world-famous Italian masters such as Andrea Mantegna, Antonello da Messina, Filippo Lippi, Tiziano and Tintoretto. However, the castle’s main attraction, which draws thousands of visitors here every year, is Michelangelo’s very last creation and spiritual testament – the stirring, incomplete Pietà Rondanini.

Just a few steps away, another of Milan’s treasure troves allows visitors to relish an impressive wealth of Renaissance wonders. Queen Maria Theresa of Austria, who first established the collection in 1776, intended the Brera Art Gallery to fulfil an educational purpose and provide students attending the adjoining Academy of Fine Arts with material for research and development. The original assembly of exemplary works was later enlarged by Napoleon – who features as the colossal Mars the Peacemaker at the centre of the main courtyard – with extraordinary art pieces confiscated from churches and monasteries throughout Lombardy and officially turned into Milan’s first museum in 1809.

Today the Brera Gallery houses a prestigious selection of masterpieces by some of Italy’s best-known artists. More than four hundred works spanning seven centuries, from the Middle Ages to the 1900s, attest to the outstanding achievements of Italian painters. With the help of your guide, you will learn to pick out the qualities and techniques of some of these masters and examine at close quarters the brushstrokes and fine detail that make up the compositions. Renaissance must-sees include Mantegna’s Dead Christ and Three Mourners, Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin, Giovanni Bellini’s Pietà and Piero della Francesca’s Virgin with Child, Angels and Saints.