Gallerie d'Italia – Milano

Gallerie d'Italia, Milano is a modern and contemporary art museum in the heart of Milan, Italy, occupying three historic palaces overlooking Piazza della Scala: Palazzo Anguissola Antona Traversi, Palazzo Brentani, and Palazzo della Banca Commerciale Italiana. Opened in 2011 and expanded in 2012, the museum houses approximately 195 nineteenth-century works and 189 twentieth-century works drawn primarily from the collections of Fondazione Cariplo and Intesa Sanpaolo. Its significance lies in its exceptional concentration of Lombard art, its atmospheric neoclassical interiors, and its role as Italy's most important corporate art collection, documenting the transition from Italian Neoclassicism through Romanticism, the Risorgimento, and into the major avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. In 2017, the museum received a special award as 'Patron of the XXI century' from the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinal Palace.

The museum was inaugurated on 3 November 2011, with a second section opening on October 25, 2012 in the Palazzo della Banca Commerciale Italiana. Its creation resulted from a collaboration between Fondazione Cariplo and Intesa Sanpaolo, combining 135 masterpieces from the Fondazione Cariplo art collection with 62 works from Intesa Sanpaolo. The project emerged from Progetto Cultura, an initiative by the Intesa Sanpaolo banking group to transform its accumulated corporate art holdings, assembled over 150 years through successive banking institutions including the Banca Commerciale Italiana, into publicly accessible museum spaces. The twentieth-century collection, known as Cantiere del '900, specifically draws from artworks that originated in the numerous credit institutions that merged into the Intesa Sanpaolo Group, beginning with the Banca Commerciale Italiana whose former headquarters at Piazza della Scala became a principal museum venue.

The museum's holdings are divided into two principal chronological circuits. The nineteenth-century collection encompasses 198 works, predominantly Lombard in character, tracing a path from Neoclassicism through Romanticism, the Risorgimento, and Symbolism to the threshold of Futurism. The twentieth-century collection, Cantiere del '900, comprises over 3,000 works in total from the Intesa Sanpaolo holdings, with the museum display focusing on masterpieces from the 1950s through the 1980s. This collection documents virtually all major tendencies in Italian art of the period, with particular depth in postwar movements. The museum also maintains the Caveau, a former bank vault containing approximately 500 paintings from the Intesa Sanpaolo collection, stored on sliding mesh panels that create unexpected exhibition pathways. The overall scope represents the most significant corporate art collection in Italy and the largest single private Italian collection of nineteenth-century Italian painting.

The nineteenth-century circuit opens with thirteen plaster bas-reliefs by Antonio Canova inspired by Homer, Virgil, and Plato, and concludes with four masterpieces by Umberto Boccioni that chart the decisive passage from Divisionism to Futurism. Central to the collection are works by Francesco Hayez, the primary Lombard Romantic painter, including Il Bacio (The Kiss) of 1859, the most reproduced Italian nineteenth-century painting, whose imagery encodes Risorgimento political meaning within a romantic genre composition. Other significant nineteenth-century figures include Gerolamo Induno and Sebastiano De Albertis with their Risorgimento battle scenes, vedutisti Giovanni Migliara, Molteni, Pietro Ronzoni, il Piccio, and Angelo Inganni, and genre painters documenting Lombard life. The twentieth-century holdings feature major works by Lucio Fontana (including multiple Concetto spaziale series), Alberto Burri (Sabbia, 1952; Rosso Nero, 1953), Emilio Vedova, Piero Manzoni (Achrome, 1958), Mario Schifano, Renato Guttuso, Giacomo Balla, Alighiero Boetti, Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Baj, and Salvatore Garau. The collection also includes significant works by Carla Accardi, Piero Dorazio, Enrico Castellani, and Michelangelo Pistoletto.

The museum complex spans more than 8,000 square metres across three historic buildings with a total of 8,300 square metres dedicated to art, architecture, and exhibition. Palazzo Anguissola Antona Traversi, the oldest of the three, preserves refined neoclassical interiors commissioned by Count Antonio Carlo Anguissola for his marriage to Bianca Arconati Visconti, featuring frescoed ceilings with mythological and allegorical programmes by painters of the Appiani circle, original stucco decoration, and a piano nobile sequence representing the most completely preserved Lombard neoclassical residential interior accessible to the public in Milan. Palazzo Brentani, adjacent, provides additional nineteenth-century exhibition space. Palazzo della Banca Commerciale Italiana, built between 1906 and 1911 to designs by architect Luca Beltrami, served as the bank's headquarters and now houses the twentieth-century collection; its monumental spaces include the former bank vault transformed into the Caveau exhibition area. The complex stands at Piazza della Scala 6, with additional frontages on via Manzoni and via Morone, directly facing the Teatro alla Scala.

The museum is located at Piazza della Scala 6, 20121 Milano, with the address also given as Via Alessandro Manzoni, 10. It is owned and operated by Intesa Sanpaolo as part of the Gallerie d'Italia network. Opening hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 9:30 am to 7:30 pm; Thursday from 9:30 am to 10:30 pm; closed Monday. Last admission is one hour before closing. Admission prices are 10 euros full fare, 8 euros reduced, and 5 euros special reduced. The museum offers free admission on the first Sunday of every month. Access is via metro lines M1 and M3 to Duomo, or M3 to Montenapoleone; tram lines 1 and 2 to Teatro alla Scala, or lines 2, 12, 14, 16, 27 to via Orefici, Piazza Cordusio; and bus line 61 to via Verdi, via dell'Orso. The visitor experience is enhanced by the contemplative Giardino di Alessandro. The museum receives approximately 120,000 to 150,000 visitors annually and programmes temporary exhibitions on photography, history, and contemporary art alongside its permanent collections.