Italian hotel breakfast buffets always include a vast array of cakes and and tarts, in addition to the usual Viennoiseries, and this was was no exception.Thursday, 19 September 2024, Milan: La Scala, La Galleria, the Duomo
Written 3 November 2024
And let the touring begin!
So far, I've kept up with transcribing my daily notes and triaging my photos for the diary, but that ends now. Once we're on a guided tour, whether with Tauck or Viking, the information firehoses open; I take so many notes and photos, and have so much less free time to work on them, that most of it just has to wait until I get home.
I slept pretty well last night except when I got that wrong-number call from Tallahassee at 1:30 am. Breakfast started at 7 am. The coffee and tea set-up in the hotel room includes, mirabile dictu, a three-cup electric kettle, and the place is supplied with more towels (of three sizes and two textures, plus terry robes) than I could possibly use, so I was able to make myself a nice pot of tea, wrap it in a small terry towel and take it down to breakfast with me.
Italian hotel breakfast buffets always include a vast array of cakes and and tarts, in addition to the usual Viennoiseries, and this was was no exception.
On a nearby counter was this series of plates of cold cuts and cheeses, covered with glass domes, ending with slices of smoked salmon. Sorry I didn't manage to get it in better focus.
The large covered chafing dish in the center in this photo held scrambled eggs; on either side of it, bacon and grilled vegetables. The other two covered dishes held potatoes and sausages.
And here's my plate. I had scrambled eggs (unsalted but otherwise perfect and easily corrected), bacon (it looked as though it would be limp and flabby but turned out to be crisp after all), bread and butter with smoked salmon on top, and a slice of grilled fennel. Nice. I wasn't in the mood for all those cakes and tarts. David, as usual, opted for additional sleep over breakfast.
Interestingly, in France, in Germany, and on Viking ships, the scrambled eggs are always salted, and expertly so, no doubt from long trial and error. But in Italy, they were invariably unsalted. I wonder if that's another manifestation of the historical tax dispute we were told about last fall, which led to northern Italian bread's being unsalted.
Note, also, the little reddish object holding the label in front of the large chafing dish (the label reads "uova strapazzate, scrambled eggs"). It's a fanciful centipede-ish animal made of glass or ceramic, and what you see just in front of the label are its pointy ears, googley eyes, and swollen bright-pink bee-stung lips, arranged in a goofy smile. Not really in keeping with the dark-wood-brass-and-potted-palm opulence of the hotel's decor, but it was not the only piece by this artist on the premises.
Here's an example of the decor I'm talking about.
But on a mirrored table in the elevator lobby on our floor was this bizzare glass creature, white on the dorsal surface, but with yellow underbelly, and again those big pouty lips, parted perhaps in surprise at seeing its reflection in the table.
David and I met in the lobby at 9:15 am with the rest of the group and were issued our new-model QuietVoxes, which are tiny, about half the size of my little digital camera. Our "small-group" tour includes only 24 guests, and we were split into two this morning for our walking tour, with two separate guides. For some reason, the other group got 14 people, and we got only 10. Our guide introduced himself as "Chessery," which I later learned is spelled "Cesare."
He started out right in front of the hotel, pointing out the via Montnapoleone, which heads off southeast almost from the hotel's front door, as the "fashion street." Also right on the hotel's doorstep is the Armani building. Cesare assured us that although he's 90 years old, Mr. Armani still works there every day. As it happens, we're in Milan during fashion week, so we should expect to see overdressed and strangely dressed people. In the 1980's, fashion apparently shifted from Paris to Milan, which is now also a world-wide capital of design.
This was also the site of barricades in the spring of 1848, when Milan was fighting the Austrians, apparently in a long series of conflicts starting in 1499 with France, then Spain, and for a long time with Austria.
But to begin our tour, we set off southwest, at right angles to via Montenapoleone, on via Manzoni. Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873) was Italy's national novelist and was born in Milan.
On our way to the Piazza de la Scala, we passed the Poldi Pezzoli Museum (shown here at the left). We never got to go inside; that's just another item we'll have to save for our next trip to Milan.
Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli (1822–1879) apparently collected everything—paintings, jewelry, furniture, a little sculpture—and had very good taste. He started a foundation to care for the collections, in his house, after his death. Cesare said that Isabella Stuart Gardner came here and got the idea to build herself a home that included a public museum. Poldi Pezzoli also collected weapons, and the patriots looted his collection for the 1848 battle.
And here, at the right, is the famous La Scala opera house. Its square, the Piazza de la Scale, separates the fashion district from the financial district. Unfortunatley, it was shrouded with staging and scrim when we were there, but you can see the flags on top of the portico, and the scrim bears faint sketching to show what the walls behind it look like.
La Scala is not the largest or the most beautiful or the oldest opera house, but it's arguably the most important in the world. The audience there is very demanding. In the 1960's, Maria Calas said that, in terms of the stagecraft and the workings, it was the best in the world. (Paris's Opéra Bastille hadn't been built yet.)
Across the piazza from the Scala is Milan's city hall; you can just make out the three flags over its door. It's housed in the Palazzo Marino, the house of Genoese trader Tomasso Marino. Cesare explained that Milan was and is very wealthy but does not like to flaunt its wealth—architecturally it's very conservative—so the Marino Palace faced disapproval because the original façade of the building (what's now the façwas originally the back) was riotously Renaissance. But Marino was from Genoa, where flaunting was much more acceptable. He added that at the time, Milan was in the kingdom of King Philip II of Spain, so Marino lent money to Philip, who never gave it back.
In the center of the piazza stands this monumental statue of Leonardo da Vinci. He was not born in Milan (nor were Verdi, Versace, and Armani), but as Cesare said, "we import here." He did live here for a while, around age 30 in 1842. He didn't study Latin, as Michelangelo did, but he was heavily into numbers, which he applied to music, architecture, and the sciences. He measured things and collected data. In the "Last Supper," he painted 13 different psychological types. He was curious about everything and was a scientist and natural philosopher. Opera hadn't been invented yet, but he even gave musical performances—he sang bass. According to Cesare, he was a "creative director." The four smaller figures (only life size) below him on the monument were workers in his studio who created work he generated ideas for. According to Wikipedia, they are Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Marco d'Oggiono, Cesare da Sesto, and Gian Giacomo Caprotti (under the name Andrea Salaino).
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) Italy's national composer, lived (and died) in our hotel. (The lobby features a large reproduction of the famous portrait of him with the white beard and cravat and black top hat). He was just starting to be recognized when both his children died in infancy, within a year of each other, and his wife died of encephalitis at age 26. The next opera he was writing at the time was a total flop, and he vowed never to write another. Fortunately, he was talked out of that. He was inspired by Schiller's poetry, and an opera he wrote was adopted as the anthem of the Italian revolution.Written 9 November 2024
Opening off one corner of the Piazza della Scala is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, named for the first king of unified Italy. It's the size, shape, and design of a cathedral, except that both the nave and the transcept are open at both ends, and the roof is steel-framed glass. It was built in 1865–1868, after independence, and is the oldest shopping mall in the western world.
The ground floor is still occupied by shops—pretty upscale ones these days (Svarowski, Dior, Prada, and Louis Vuitton face each other under the central dome)—but the three floors above are all hotels and offices, plus a synagogue. They were originally apartments, but no one lives there anymore.
You can tell it was built during the industrial revolution, from the iron framework of the arches and glass panels. The globe lamps were originally gas but are now electric. The walls are original, but the metal work above and the floor mosaics were redone after WWII bombing.
Here Cesare stands next to a "skylight" in the floor. The warehouses for the shops are in the basement, and these glass panels were originally the source of light for them—I'm sure they've been electrified since.
At the right here is a mosaic of a bull, restored in 2014. A rumor somehow arose that spinning on your heel on the bull's prominent testacles brought good luck. As a result, the tiles are entirely worn through, and nothing but a round hole in the floor remains. To get this photo, I had to snap it quick, between spinners. One member of a Japanese tour group had just stepped away, and you can see her successor stepping up to take her place.
Passing through the galleria led us directly into the Piazza del Duomo—the cathedral square. The Piazza della Scala, the galleria, and the Piazza del Duomo, we were told, are the three centers of Milan. But before visiting the church, we walked around to the back entrance of the Palazzo Reale (the royal palace, which also faces onto the cathedral square), now a museum, to see the current display of pages from the Atlantic Codex, 1119 pages of Leonardo's sketchbooks! They display a couple of dozen pages at a time and rotate them regularly.
On the way, our guide pointed out this relief of a sow on the side of a medieval building. We encountered several images of the animal at different location, because she's part of the city's origin story. Apparently some goddess or other appeared to two brothers 2600 years ago and told them to travel into the forest and, when they reached the center, to found a city. But, they asked, how will we know when we've reached the center? I'll send you a sign, she promised—a black and white sow. Sure enough, in the forest, when they encountered a black and white sow, they stopped and founded Milan.
Today the population is 1,300,000 just in the city. Greater Milan is 3 million; Rome has a higher population, but Milan's metropolitan area is bigger than Rome.
At the right here is the back door of the Palazzo Reale, the one where we entered. The statue is of Cardinal and Archbishop Federico Boromeo, cousin and successor to St. Charles Boromeo. He founded the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, one of several museums housed in the palace, in 1607, one of the first "public" libraries; that is one of the first to be open to anyone who could read and write. He later added the picture gallery that is also housed in the palace.
At the left here is the dimly lighted room where the Codex Atlanticus is displayed. Nowadays, the books lining the walls are of no great value—duplicates or replicas—only intended to show how the place would have looked in Federico's day. The real collection is kept under controlled temperature and humidity and greater security.
At the right is a replica of the codex and its display case. Again, the real one is securely locked up somewhere.
On one wall (the one in the distance in the photo above) was this beautiful clock, built from one of Leonardo's drawings from the codex.
The drawings themselves were exquisite but very difficult to photograph. The one at the right here came out the best. I think it's a crane or maybe a seige tower. The drawings, displayed in the lighted cases along the side walls, were not replicas but actual pages from the codex. Only a few are displayed at a time, and they are rotated out regularly so that their exposure to light is minimized.
In a little side room was this small Roman mosaic floor, exceptionally complete and well preserved. Nothing to do with Leonardo or the codex, but worth preserving nonetheless.
At the right is the only portrait of a man that Leonardo ever painted. Cesare pointed out several features that prove to art historians that he didn't paint all of it. He also pointed out the sections that experts believe really are his work.
Back outside, Cesare pointed out the tower at the left here as a typical example of fascist architecture. Nearby were other, equally slab-sided buildings with modernistic reliefs on the corners. One
is the museum of 19th century art. Another
is the museum of modern Milan. Its reliefs include a few blank spaces, where images of Mussolini were removed.
At the right is a particularly nice set of wrought-iron Art Nouveau balcony railings.
On the way to lunch, we passed through the Piazza del Duomo again. At the left here is the monument equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel II that stands in the center.
He was from the Savoy family and was not a man of culture but a man of action. I think Cesare said he couldn't even read maps, but he had great charisma and was a great leader. When she met him, Queen Victoria famously said that he might not have been as cultured or as refined or as educated, but that if a dragon were to burst into the room, she was convinced that he would be the one in the forefront with his sword.
At the right is the facade of the cathedral itself, which is dedicated to the nativity of the virgin. Like many in Italy it is faced with marble, giving it that "clad in antique dominos" look. According to Cesare, it's the third largest cathedral in the world. It was built over five centuries, so its architecture ranges from Renaissance, through Neoclassicism, and then gothic.
It's clad in pink Candoglio marble, which came from forty miles away, floated first on a lake, then the river, then a canal to get here. According to Cesare, at 5 pm on a sunny winter day, the whole façade looks pink. The drawback is that Candoglia marble gets very grainy and porous on the surface, and therefore gets very dirty.
On the very top, 825 feet above ground level, is a statue of the Madonna. She was intended literally to oversee the city, so now that some buildings have gone up that are taller than the duomo, they put images of the virgin on top of those buildings, to ensure she can still see over everything.
Another statue on the cathedral is of St. George, recognizable by the flag he carries. Gian Galeazzo Visconti (1351–1402), first duke of Milan, felt that his statue should be on the cathedral, so he had himself protray as St. George, who had a legitimate reason to be up there.
Lunch was at a restaurant behind the cathedral that was called, really, "Signorvino" ("Mister Wine"). The paper placemats were laid out as a sort of board game, though I couldn't make out enough of the Italian on the spot to understand the rules—something about making the rounds of Italian wine regions.
Each table was provided with bottles of red and white house wine and with a dish of assorted breads.
Then each table of four got this tower of finger foods, sort of like a giant English high tea. At the top were flavored and plain butters, cheeses, and spreads, including mostarda. On the middle tier, crisp fried crackers (mostly hidden), a copper pot of assorted fritters (squash blossoms, veggie chunks, etc.), wedges of puffy foccacio. Below that, slices of salami and prosciutto, a pot of little meatballs in tomato sauce, chunks of pizza, puffy bread sticks, a pot of soft white cheese (ricotta maybe). I guess it could all be considered tapas.
At the right is my initial plate, clockwise from noon: meatball, herbed foccacio, salami, fried cracker, veggie fritter and cheese, mostarda (dried fruit stewed with mustard), squash-blossom fritter, bread, pizza, and a wedge of cheese.
Next came a salad that I forgot to photograph: a sort of green hummus (maybe a mix of chick peas and green peas); grilled onion, eggplant, and zucchini; green beans, and a creamy dressing.
Dessert was, for each of us, a crisp, crumbly sort of almond cookie bar and a tiny dish of custard.
After lunch, we walked back around the cathedral to the entrance. Cesare assured us that the back end of the building, of which I show a small portion here, is much more original and beautiful than the façade.
Written 13 November 2024
Here are the usual shot down the nave and one from a different angle that shows the capitals of the columns.
Each capital consists of one or two tiers of six or eight niches harboring statues, which all are included in the staggering 3400 statues that bedeck the building inside and out; they are one reason it took so long to build.
The red light in the dome high above the alter is where the holy nail (one of the 28 nails used to construct the cross) is kept. Once a year, the archibishop rides up in a cloud-shaped elevator, just visible behind the dome of the alter, to fetch the nail, bring it down for viewing, and take it back up.
The floors are mosaics of marble of different colors.
Cutting across the floor at a seemingly random angle is this inlaid metal line—brass or bronze, I think— with little cartoons along it. I was just musing on what they could be when Cesare explained. They are the signs of the zodiac (here Taurus and Gemini; elsewhere I spotted Cancer).
In the photo at the left here, the point to look for is not the stained glass window but the tiny hole in the vaulting above it, which appears in the photo as a tiny dot of light between the top of the window and the central keystone of the vault. The sun shining in through that hole projects a small dot of light on the floor, which moves as the sun does.
Arrival of that dot on the metal line marks exactly noon, and the little zodiac cartoons act as a calendar. The location at which the spot crosses the line at noon, in relation to the zodiac signs, tells you what month you're in and how far through it. All the Italian cathedrals we visited on this trip had similar arrangments.
Elsewhere in the building, we were shown this paleochristian (4th century) medallion. Its markings incorporate chi and rho, as well as alpha and omega. It's among the earliet relics of the site.
The cathedral's baptismal font was made from an old Roman sarcophagus. Now, it's sheltered by this elaborate baldaquin.
To me, the most striking and memorable feature of the duomo is this famous statue of Saint Bartholomew, flayed. I remember it from Art 100. As you approach it, as shown at the left here, you see a bald guy with really sharp muscle definition who seems to be draped with bands of fabric, holding a book against his thigh.
As you look around the sides and back, though, you see that what he's wearing is his own skin. In the right-hand photo, you can see the complete skin of his head, with nose, beard, and scalp, hanging down his back. Elsewhere, you can find the skins of his hands and feet. Saint Bartholomew was martyred by being flayed alive.
At the end of the tour of the duomo, we were issued tickets to the art-gallery side of the Palazzo Reale, in case we wanted to visit it on our own, but our feet were shot, so we just walked back to the hotel. Among the other interesting things we learned but that I didn't manage to fit into the descriptions above:
For dinner, we were on our own. We tried for reservations at a couple of the restaurants recommnded by the tour director or the concierge, but it was fasion week in Milan, so everyplace was booked up. We wound up having quite a nice dinner in the hotel's fancier restaurant, Don Carlos (named, of course, for Verdi's most ambitious opera).
The first amuse bouche was little pastry cylinders filled with some sort of pumpkin preparations with pumpkin-seed brittle on top.
The second amuse bouche was a preparation of salted caramel and oil with fresh herbs; some sort of rosemary-flavored cauliflower prepration; and cheese sauce over the top.
It also came with a special drink, containing milk, camomille, cauliflower extract, a little whisky, and something I didn't understand. Not as tasty, so I left most of it.
Next came long, thin, crispy breadsticks, accompanied by outstanding taralli (little doughnut shaped olive-oil crackers) with almonds in them.
We also each got a small round bread boule that came with both salted butter and special vintage olive oil, which the waiter poured into little dimpled cups for us.
The menu, like the opera, was divided into first, second, third, and final acts. We each ordered from the second act initially.
I chose "La Zuppa" (left), described as "shellfish soup with fregola (little bitty spherical toasted pasta) and cannelini beans. The waiter brougjht the bowl of fregola, beans, and crustaceans (some raw and some cooked), and poured crustacean soup over it.
David chose spaghetti and meatballs (right)—described just like that on the menu, even though we were repeatedly told that Italians don't combine spaghetti and meatballs, that it's just not an Italian thing—which the waiter assembled at the table, stirring in a little olive oil, carefully arranging the meatballs around the edges of the dish, then grating green cheese (colored with basil leaves) over the top, followed by regular parmesan. Apparently the meatballs were stuffed with liver pâté.
I then had "La Quaglia Traviata" (misled quail) from the "third act" of the menu. It was stuffed with sausage and giblets and accompanied by sautéed chicory, pumpkin cream, and quail eggs with Béarnaise sauce. The orange ribbons are also pumpkin. Yummy.
I found the plates a little busy. You can probably make out the bunny at 7 o'clock, but the quail has been plopped right on top of the head of a deer of some sort, whose legs you can see at about 5 o'clock.
The eggs and bearnaise were served in a little separate silver cup.
For dessert, we split his Napoleon of crisp pastry, dulche de leche, orange marmalade (!), hazelnut cream, and orange segments. Odd but tasty.
The mignardises came in a box full of hazelnuts: fruit paste, macarons, peanut clusters, and a little cylindrical pastry.
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