Museo del Novecento: Italian Modern Art Above Piazza del Duomo

Most visitors to Piazza del Duomo never notice it. The Museo del Novecento occupies the Arengario, the fascist-era palace beside the cathedral, and holds the finest collection of twentieth-century Italian art anywhere – with a top-floor window looking straight onto the Duomo. Guests at Taylor's Love Solferino B&B can walk there.

Museo del Novecento, Milan. Photo: Stefano Stabile, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Getting There from Our B&B

On foot: approximately 1.7 km, about 21 minutes from Via Solferino 56, down through Brera past La Scala and the Galleria.

By metro: from Moscova (M2 green line), 300 metres away, to Cadorna, then M1 red line to Duomo. The museum entrance is on the square. Around 16 minutes door to door.

A Fascist Palace Turned Into an Art Museum

The Arengario was built between 1936 and 1956 as a platform from which the regime addressed crowds in the square. After the war it sat awkwardly, too prominent to demolish and too compromised to celebrate.

The conversion, completed in 2010, kept the building's severity but drove a spiral ramp up through it, so that visitors climb in a slow curve past the windows. It was an elegant answer to an uncomfortable inheritance.

What You Will See

• Il Quarto Stato by Pellizza da Volpedo – the vast 1901 painting of striking workers advancing towards the viewer. It has its own room at the start, and it is the reason many people come.
• Futurism – the strongest section: Boccioni, Balla, Carrà, Severini. Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is here.
• Giorgio de Chirico – metaphysical squares, empty arcades and long shadows.
• Morandi – the quiet bottles, in deliberate contrast to the Futurist noise upstairs.
• Lucio Fontana – the slashed canvases, and a neon ceiling installation designed for this building.
• The Duomo window – on the top floor, one of the best free views of the cathedral in Milan.

Practical Information

• Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, roughly 10:00 to 19:30, with a late opening on Thursdays. Closed Mondays.
• Admission: around 10 euro, with reductions. Free entry on some evenings and on the first Sunday of the month – expect queues then.
• Best time to visit: late afternoon, so you reach the top-floor window as the light softens on the Duomo.
• Time needed: about 90 minutes to two hours.
• Booking ahead: not usually necessary except for major temporary exhibitions.

Combine It With

You are on Piazza del Duomo. The cathedral, its rooftop terraces, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and Palazzo Reale are all within a hundred metres. The Museo del Novecento is the best of these to do last, when the square outside is at its most crowded.

Why Staying in Brera Makes the Difference

Taylor's Love Solferino B&B is at Via Solferino 56 in Zone 1, the historic centre, between Brera, Moscova and Corso Garibaldi. Twenty minutes on foot to the Duomo means you can go twice – once for the museum, once at night when the square is lit and almost empty.

For travellers who prefer a short stay apartment in Milan centre to a hotel, the B&B offers free self check-in with a smart lock. Porta Garibaldi FS, 700 metres away, connects directly to Malpensa Airport with the Malpensa Express.