“A house splendidly fit and in the modern Milanese taste.” Thus wrote a representative of the National Gallery of London in 1858 after having visited the home of a young collector: Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli. Eclectic and refined in style, his palazzo was a breeding ground of new trends and engaged the most famous architects and designers of the time. In the meantime, he travelled around in search of treasures for his collection: masterpieces of Italian painting, armour, porcelain, ancient artefacts, clocks, tapestries, jewellery.

Poldi Pezzoli was a Milanese tastemaker who loved to share his home, and he included precise instructions in his will to transform the palazzo into a museum “for perpetual public use and benefit”. The foundation that runs the museum today has stayed in step with the times, entrusting major architectural projects to Luigi Caccia Dominioni and Arnaldo Pomodoro, opening up the doors to contemporary artists like Giulio Paolini and expanding the collection with exceptional donations, such as the recent acquisition of Antonello da Messina’s Reading Virgin.

Today, we like to visit his house as if we were Poldi Pezzoli’s personal guests: he welcomes us at the Neo-Baroque stair, leads us through the rooms with paintings by Mantegna, Botticelli, Pollaiolo, Lotto and Ceruti and together we admire his newly frescoed ceilings. And then we enjoy tea in his Dante Study, while he tells about his latest trip to Paris. Don’t miss it.