Palazzo Morando, History and art museum in fashion district, Milan, Italy.
Palazzo Morando is an art history museum housed in a Baroque building in central Milan, displaying paintings, sculptures, textiles, and decorative crafts across multiple floors. It also serves as home to Milan's Costume Collection, featuring garments and accessories spanning five centuries.
The Casati family bought the palazzo at the end of the 16th century, and a frieze with putti in two rear salons bears the date 1651. From 1733 the Villa family owned it; Giovanni Villa's renovations gave it its Lombard Baroque appearance. Countess Lydia Morando Attendolo Bolognini donated it to the City of Milan in 1945, and after the war the city history museum, previously at Palazzo Sormani, was moved here.
The rooms show how Milan's upper class lived from the 17th to 20th century, with period-decorated spaces that reflect everyday life of those times. You can see how taste and fashion changed across the furniture, wallpapers, and decorations displayed throughout the building.
The museum entrance is at Via Sant'Andrea 6, a short walk from the Montenapoleone metro stop. Visitors move through the piano nobile via a monumental double-ramp staircase with a Rococo balustrade; the galleries are on the upper floors. The courtyard, paved with black and white pebbles in swirling patterns, is visible from the entrance side.
The Costume Moda Immagine collection is not the only one here: the museum also holds the art collection donated by Duchess Eugenia Litta Visconti Arese to the Ospedale Maggiore, including Vincenzo Vela's romantic sculpture "La preghiera del mattino", commissioned in 1846 by her husband Duke Giulio Litta.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,370 contributors worldwide.
