WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21
As much as we tried to pretend we could survive the drilling outside, it was unbearable. Even when we yelled, we couldn’t hear each other.
Our goals for the day…find a gym, visit the Museum of Modern Art and hear a free concert at La Scala.
MILAN NEIGHBORHOODS
Dressed nicely in anticipation of a La Scala concert, we walked along Vialle Monza to Corsa Buenos Aires and Corso Venezia. Google estimated the walk time at an hour; it took almost four. Lots of meandering. We immediately blew off the idea of finding a gym. Starting in Turro, a residential neighborhood of mid-sized and older high-rise apartment buildings, we passed the train station, a shopping area of H&M and Zara-type stores eventually approaching the Piazza de la Duomo, where stores become increasingly expensive and high-end.
Lunch at a cafeteria-style restaurant after which we popped into a few shops – including COS, our new favorite! When we arrived at La Scala ticket office an hour before the concert, I expected a line to have formed. There wasn’t one. Turns out the lineup was in the morning. We missed it. No tickets for us.
DAZZLED BY GALLERIA VITTORIO EMANUELE II
Sad to miss a concert, we headed toward the Duomo, walking through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II on our way to the Museo del Novencento. The Galleria, which we visited the day before on the tour, hosts some of the fanciest stores in this fashion city, among them two Pradas. We self-consciously walked through one.
Above the Prada store is an exclusive 5-star hotel, The Town House Galleria, whose access is kept secretive except for those who stay there. The Galleria, of stained glass and iron work, was built between 1865 and 1877 and rises four stories. A bookstore, Liberia Bocca, which has operated since the Galleria opened, has books stacked from floor to high ceiling in a very small space. The enticing smell of ink and paper is thick in the tight shop. We also partook of a Milan tradition, twirling on a tile with boars’ balls in a center of the Galleria. It’s supposed to bring good luck.
MUSEO DEL NOVENCENTO : ITALIAN MODERN ART
Across the Piazza is the Museo del Novencento. The featured exhibition centered on Margarita Sorrito, who was Mussolini’s friend and a popular and influential art critic and writer. She identified and promoted Social Realist artists living mostly in Milan in the 1920s and 1930s. Social Realism, or people’s art, with it’s dark, earth-tone color palette, weighty objects and deliberately chunky (strong?) figures, doesn’t really appeal to me.
After the special exhibition, we walked through the six levels of the museum and again, I must admit I’m also not a fan of 20th century Italian art. The past accomplishments of Italian masters seem to hang over 20th C artists. Attempts to be inventive, while appropriately referential, push many paintings away from emotional authenticity and into self-conscious politics.
It was a thrill, however, to see Piero Manzoni’s shit in a tin from the 1950s (well, weird to say it was a thrill, but I’ve seen so many reproductions in books — it is just shut tin container), Lucio Fontana’s poked canvases and strange mixtures of mediums, and one of my favorites, Alberto Burri and some of his burnt plastic canvases. Two paintings from the 1960s, large white canvases with graphite drawings and tiny splashes of color by Gastone Novelli, were a delightful surprise.
NIGHTTIME VIEW OF PIAZZA DEL DUOMO
From the Museum’s fifth floor, we looked over the crowded Piazza del Duomo. The Duomo’s white marble glowed in the darkness. Maurizio, our guide from the day before, told us that when the artists and designers ran out of Saints and religious figures to make into statues for the Cathedral, they turned to popular sports heroes, and one political figure of note. Napoleon.
On the walking tour the day before, we visited the interior piazza of the Fine Arts University. A few students were celebrating their graduations, donning garlands on their heads and holding bouquets of flowers. They roamed the piazza taking photos with friends and family. A prominent stone statue of a nearly perfect male body dominated the open courtyard. It was sculpted to represent Napoleon, who we all know was short and pudgy in real life. When Napoleon saw the statue, he didn’t like it because he said athletic people were stupid and he didn’t want to be associated with them.
Anyway, he preferred the idea of seeing himself on the Duomo.
The cardinal at the time concocted a story about a St. Napoléon to justify including a Napoleon statue as a cathedral addition. The statue was positioned on the right of the entrance, easy to see from the front. This statue also looks nothing like Napoleon.
A LITTLE LA SCALA HISTORY
The Duomo, not owned by the Catholic church, was built and continues to be maintained by a private foundation. La Scala is similarly privately-owned. But it’s exclusive. The general price for an Opera ticket is about €200. Originally built in 1778, the opera house was destroyed and rebuilt in the early 1800s when Milan was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. (It was again destroyed during WWII.) In the 1800s, the wealthy citizenry appealed to the queen for help rebuilding La Scala. She was very clever offering land and Austria’s best architect, but requiring the Milanese patrons to pay for the building.
