Milano, Palazzo Reale

The Palazzo Reale was the seat of the City Consuls during the Middle Ages when it used to be known as the Broletto Vecchio. It later became the residence of the Visconti family (Azzone commissioned the decoration of its interior to Giotto, of which no trace is left today) and of the Sforza family. The building underwent Baroque changes commissioned by the Spanish governors and in the 18th century (1770-1778), under Maria Theresa of Austria, the most radical changes were made by the architect Piermarini (Foligno, 1734-1808), one of the most prominent representatives of Italian neo-classicism. Since then, the former Broletto dei Consoli (also named Arengo since the people held meetings in the piazza), also former residence of the Dukes of Milan, was later named: Regio-Ducale in honour of the Austrian emperors; Palazzo Nazionale in honour of Napoleon's Cisalpine Republic (1797-1802); Palazzo di Regia Corte during the years of Bonaparte's Italian reign; Palazzo della Corte Reale with the return of the Austrian domain (1814); Palazzo Reale since 1859 in Milan under the Savoia and unified Italy. In 1776, a devastating fire destroyed the famous Theatre which was located inside the building's walls. The bombings in 1943 also destroyed many of the building's halls and their neo-classical décor in the style of the Empire.
The large Salone delle Cariatidi contains the remnants of the glorious past: it now serves as the exhibition hall for the many art exhibitions organized each year by the City of Milan, which now uses a part of the building for the Civic Museum of Contemporary Art. The monumental façade, with its neo-classical forms, reaches outwards with its two lateral wings. The ground floor, with flat gabled windows and in the centre, the three-arched entrance is surmounted by two higher levels marked vertically by a series of Ionic pilasters. The windows of the piano nobile, with its curved and triangular gables are based on the models of the 1700's. A vast atrium leads to a courtyard that ends along a second atrium, which in turn leads to a last courtyard. The latter leads to the monumental Stairway of honour, in pink granite, that leads to the interior halls where there are paintings from the major artists and decorators of the neo-classical and Napoleonic periods: from Knoller, late-Baroque German painter, to Hayez, a painter who line with the late neo-classical tradition recreating scenes filled with pathos.