Milan recently opened a museum featuring the city’s vast and prestigious collection of twentieth-century art. Located in piazza Duomo in Milan, the Museo del Novecento (‘Museum of the Twentieth Century’) is housed in the restored Palazzo dell’Arengario.
With a portion of the collection on display at the Boschi Di Stefano House Museum, the Museo del Novecento spotlights a range of masterworks from the Italian Avanguardia and Futurism to the Arte Povera and the contemporary. Works from such acclaimed artists as Boccioni, Carrà, Soffici, de Chirico, Sironi, Martini, Morandi, Fontana, Manzoni, Picasso, and Kounellis have found a home in the Arengario, and curators have reserved a special space for a range of young and emerging artists from Italy.
Local officials are pleased with the huge turnout so far: more than 200,000 visitors since the December 6 opening, a success they admit is largely to due to the free entrance, which continues through February. ‘In tourism terms, Milan is the third most visited city in Europe,’ said Milan mayor Letizia Moratti, ‘and it deserves the new, prestigious space that promotes our civic heritage as well as piazza Duomo, symbol of our city.
Free entry was the city’s gift to the Milanese and tourists; a gift to celebrate the revival of the Arengario, to promote twentieth-century art and the city’s collection of artworks.’
The new space is also high-tech. Through Bluetooth technology, visitors can download free details on each work on display, museum news and even wallpaper for their mobile phones.
For more information, see www.museodelnovecento.org.
