Museo Bagatti Valsecchi

A small Neo-Renaissance house museum in Milan, Italy

Between 1883 and 1894, the Milanese brothers Fausto and Giuseppe Bagatti Valsecchi, both lawyers, decided to marry their artistic side, inherited their miniaturist father, with the wealth inherited from the Baron Valsecchi who had adopted him, and together created this neo-Renaissance palazzo.

They acquired as much as they could in the way of original 15th- through 17th-century pieces, tapestries, furnishings, and paintings from all across Italy, and what they couldn't get original they had an army of the best Lombard craftsmen imitate. They ransacked Northern and Central Italy for antiques, frescoes, and ideas.

One room was copied from the ducal palace in Mantova, another inspired by the Urbino's Ducal seat. The Sala della Stufa Valtellinese was just lifted whole from a palazzo in Sondrio and reassembled here.

Though there is one Giovanni Bellini painting, none of the other works are by notable artists, but the overall effect is a glorious mixture of Renaissance craftsmanship and art with the late 19th century's Romantic sensibilities.

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