Address: Viale Giorgio Byron, 2, 20154 Milan MI
Contact: 3471552920
faiappiani@fondoambiente.it
Palazzina Appiani is open Wednesday through Sunday: 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m., last admission 5:00 p.m.
Guided tours by reservation: https://fondoambiente.it/luoghi/palazzina-appiani/visita
When the French troops led by Napoleon burst into Milan in 1796, a brief but intense political and civic season opened for the city, which saw it as the protagonist of grand plans designed to give it a metropolitan and cultural dimension worthy of a capital city. Architecture, too, had to respond to this need for change and transformation with projects that celebrated the magnificence of Napoleonic power. The urban reorganization of the vast area around the Castello Sforzesco became its emblem: it was conceived as a large parade ground, even equipped with a triumphal arch-the Arch of Peace-and an arena for public performances, designed in 1805 by Luigi Canonica on the model of the ancient Roman circuses. Today, the Civic Arena is one of the few remaining architectures bearing witness to the ambitious plans of Napoleon, who also wanted a grandstand here for his public appearances. Thus a loggia of monumental classical forms arose, open to the amphitheater and included in a building with simple, compact lines, which turns its exterior front onto the park with a porticoed facade with an already neoclassical flavor. Inside, a Hall of Honor decorated with marble, crystal and a continuous frieze evoking the triumphal processions of Roman bas-reliefs of the imperial age, painted in the manner of the neoclassical painter Andrea Appiani after whom the Palazzina is named. FAI opens it to the public with guided tours and appointments often dedicated to children to discover and enjoy a neoclassical jewel immersed in the greenery and history of Milan.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://fondoambiente.it/luoghi/palazzina-appiani
