Almost as famous a Milanese sight as the duomo is the gaudily
opulent Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II , a cruciform
glass-domed gallery designed in 1865 by Giuseppe Mengoni, who was
killed when he fell from the roof a few days before the inaugural
ceremony. Though the prices in its cafés are extortionate, it's
worth splashing out once to indulge in some people-watching - eke
your drink out for long enough and you'll see what seems like the
city's whole population shove or stroll through depending on the
time of day. In one of the lulls take a look at the circular mosaic
beneath the glass cupola, composed of the symbols that made up the
cities of the newly united Italy: Romulus and Remus for Rome, a
fleur-de-lys for Florence and a bull for Turin - the indentation in
the last is because it's considered good luck to stand on the
bull's testicles.
The left arm of the gallery leads towards Piazza dei
Mercanti , surrounded by medieval palaces which were once the
seats of guilds and other city organizations. The square was the
commercial centre of medieval Milan and the city's financial hub
until the turn of the twentieth century, when the Borsa or Stock
Exchange - then housed in the sixteenth-century Palazzo dei
Giureconsulti on Via Mercanti - was moved north to Piazza degli
Affari. Now the square is one of the city's more peaceful spots,
dominated by the Palazzo della Ragione , built in the early
thirteenth century to celebrate Milan winning autonomy from the
emperor. The upper storey was added four centuries later, by
another imperial figure, Empress Maria Theresa.
The main branch of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele leads through to
Piazza della Scala and the world-famous La Scala opera
house, designed by Piermarini and opened in 1778 with an opera by
Antonio Salieri - a well-known name in his own right then, though
more famous now (thanks to Peter Schaffer's play Amadeus )
for his rivalry with Mozart than for his music. La Scala is still
to a great extent the social and cultural centre of Milan's elite,
and although Sixties protests have since led to a more open
official policy on the arts in Milan, it remains as exclusive a
venue as it ever was, with ticket prices sky-high. The small
museum (May-Oct daily 9am-noon & 2-5pm; Nov-April
Mon-Sat same hours; L6000/€3.10), featuring composers' death masks,
plaster casts of conductors' hands, and a rugged statue of Puccini
in a capacious overcoat, may be the only chance you get to see the
interior.
Another big-name nineteenth-century figure lived only a block
away from La Scala at Via Morone 1, just off the busy street that
now bears his name. The house of Alessandro Manzoni
(Tues-Fri 9.30am-noon & 2-4pm; free), who wrote the great
Italian novel of the last century, The Betrothed , now
contains a small museum of memorabilia, though it won't mean much
if you haven't read the book.
The star attraction of this area, however, is the Museo
Poldi Pezzoli at Via Manzoni 12 (Tues-Sun 10am-6pm;
L10,000/€5.17), comprising pieces assembled by the
nineteenth-century collector Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli. Much of
this is made up of rather dull rooms of clocks, watches, cutlery
and jewellery, but the Salone Dorato upstairs contains a number of
intriguing paintings, including a portrait of a portly San
Nicola da Tolentino by Piero della Francesca, part of an
altarpiece on which he worked spasmodically for fifteen years. St
Nicholas looks across at two works by Botticelli, one a gentle
Madonna del Libro , among the many variations of the Madonna
and Child theme which he produced at the end of the fifteenth
century, the other a mesmerizing Deposition , painted
towards the end of his life in response to the monk Savonarola's
crusade against his earlier, more humanistic canvases. Also in the
room is one of Italy's most famous portraits, Portrait of a
Young Woman by Pollaiuolo, whose anatomical studies are
evidenced in the subtle suggestion of bone structure beneath the
skin of this ideal Renaissance woman.