Palazzo Melzi di Cusano

You come upon the Palazzo Melzi di Cusano at number eighteen Via Monte Napoleone, a Milan street synonymous with luxury and elegance. Completed in the early 1830s to designs by Giovanni Battista Bareggi, the palace is a distinguished example of Milanese neoclassicism. He built it on the bones of a fifteenth-century house. The remodelling ran so deep that one fresco alone outlasted it.

The street front takes its cue from the nearby Palazzo Serbelloni. Giant Ionic columns frame a slightly projecting central section and hold up a triangular pediment. The arrangement creates a loggia, an open gallery set on the upper floor. A high relief by Gaetano Monti between the first and second floors celebrates Francesco Sforza, whose deeds anchor Milanese history. The overall decoration stays plainer than that of some contemporaries, and heavier: grandeur comes from mass more than ornament.

The interiors wear their original neoclassical decoration remarkably well. The first floor holds intricate stucco work and mosaic flooring. The palazzo sits in private hands, yet Milan counts it firmly among the city's cultural heritage. And the halls keep one survivor from before all this: Bernardino Luini's fresco, the last piece of the fifteenth-century house.