Museum Duomo di Milano

The Museum of the Duomo of Milan identifies its essence in its very name. It is a museum originating from the cathedral, from which all the works on display have been taken and which constantly refers to it.

WELCOME TO
MILAN DUOMO MUSEUM
Inaugurated in 1953 and gradually expanded until its most recent refurbishment in 2013, the Museum is located within the Royal Palace.
Its rooms house The Treasury and original works of art from the
Cathedral. The exhibition itinerary presents the main stages of construction in chronological order, covering a timeframe from circa 1386 to 1965, the year in which the fifth and final façade door was inaugurated.
A centuries-long history supported by the never-ending industriousness of the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano, the institution established in 1387 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, then Lord of Milan, to oversee the
construction of the nascent Cathedral.
The Fabbrica del Duomo is still responsible today for the maintenance and enhancement of the Monument, as well as for the entire marble supply chain: from its excavation af the Candoglia Quarry, in Piedmont, to its processing at the Marble Workshop, up to the placing of the
marble pieces on the Monument.

THE GARGOYLES
Late Gothic Naturalism
There are 150 gargoyles placed on the Duomo and they perform the function of drainage channels for the collection of rainwater from the Cathedral's roof. In this room it is possible to admire some of the oldest examples, dating back to the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, removed from the outside of the Cathedral for conservation and safety reasons.
Once placed at the ends of the flying buttresses, the gargoyles- known as doccioni in Italian -are functional and decorative elements of Gothic architecture that have taken on zoomorphic forms over the centuries.
In this room, there is a succession of figures that fully fall into the large imaginative basin of fantastic naturalism, characteristic of mediaeval bestiaries.

THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS
Panels from the 15th to the 16th century
Original panels can be seen displayed in this room, examples of the heterogeneity of the Duomo's stained-glass corpus that has over 164 large windows, of which 55 are historiated, animated by over 3,000 characters.
Glass art in the Duomo has followed the events of the construction site in parallel. The decision to fit out the Cathedral with historiated windows, which in Gothic architecture carry an important educational function, dates back to 1403. The term historiated refers to the structure of the stained-glass window, made up of numerous panes called panels, arranged in such a way as to illustrate the biblical and evangelical stories and the lives of the Saints in successive episodes. In this way, even those unable to read could have access to the knowledge of sacred events. For this reason, stained-glass windows are known as Biblia Pauperum, the Pauper's Bible.
The technique
The creation of an ancient stained-glass window required a complex technique. Firstly, a sketch of the composition was made, which then needed to be transferred to a full-scale cartoon. The sketch and cartoon were usually carried out by a painter. The glass, coloured with substances such as oxidised metals and worked to produce sheets of modest dimensions, were then cut by the master glassmaker according to the design of the cartoon.
The pieces were painted with grisaille, made of oxidised metals, glass powder, and an aqueous or oily binder. In this way, the fundamental details obtained for the correct understanding of the images such as faces, architecture, folds of clothing, and tree leaves were painted. Next followed the leading, fixing the pieces to one another with lead, and the grouting, or the sealing between the lead and the glass. Finally, the panel was placed in a special frame, which was then mounted on the interior structure of the windows and protected externally by metal mesh.

THE WOODEN MODELS
From the 16th to the 19th century
This room preserves the surviving architectural models used over the centuries as fundamental work tools to evaluate the design choices under consideration by the architects in charge of
the Cathedral.
The Model of the Duomo in the centre of this room, with its impressive size, reproduces the building on a scale of 1:22. Carved between 1519 and 1891 in lime wood and walnut and integrated with spruce, the Model was modified over the centuries by various artists.
The inlaid façade is not the current one built following the Amati and Zanoja project, but rather shows Giuseppe Brentano's one, an architect who won the tender announced by the
Fabbrica in 1888 for the reconstruction of the front due to the enormous bequest left by
Aristide De Togni. His proposal - never carried out - foresaw the demolition of the lower part of the façade and the construction of three large doors, and not five like today.
The room also houses three other wooden models of the façade, projects exemplifying the different trends that animated the centuries-old debate on how to complete the front. To be appreciated is the juxtaposition between the semi-façades by Carlo Buzzi (1654) and
Francesco Castelli (1652), the former being solution-orientated in conformity with the
Gothic Revival style and the latter being a Roman-style solution, in the wake of the 16th-century proposals of the architect Pellegrino Pellegrini.
Luca Beltrami and Gaetano Moretti are instead the artists of the last model (1889-1891), which was created for the occasion of the tender announced in 1881 by the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.Read more