Milan. Royal Palace

Milan. Night view of the Royal Palace.

The origins of the Palace are very ancient and intertwine with the history of the city of Milan: its first name was "old Broletto", that is, a fenced area, but in Milan it became the Town Hall or the palace intended for the government of the city.

At the time of the Lordships of the Visconti (1395-1447) and of the Sforza (1450-1535), the palace became an official representative building of the dukes in Milan.

With the Spanish domination, the new Iberian governors take up major renovations in the palace. The first theater of the city is built inside (1594).

With the Austrians taking over from the Spaniards, the building became a place of sumptuous court life.

The Austrians were mainly responsible for the renovation of the exterior of the building in the forms that we can still see today. With the intervention of Piermarini, called to court from 1770 to 1778, every architectural testimony of Lombard art disappeared and the whole Palace took on neoclassical clothes. Since then it was the Palace of the rulers, from Maria Teresa to Napoleon, from Ferdinand I to the Savoy kings of Italy.

With the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte the palace was called in rapid sequence: Regia Corte, Palazzo della Corte Reale and finally Palazzo Reale.

With the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy (1861) the palace passed into the ownership of the Savoy family who purely used it only on rare occasions.

After the First World War, the Savoys the Royal Palace in the Municipality of Milan.

Hard hit by the bombings of 1943, the Palace lost most of its treasures: entire rooms on the main floor were irreparably destroyed and with them their content of frescoes, friezes, sculptures and decorations.

Since the beginning of the 1950s, the Palazzo has been used as a venue for painting exhibitions.