Palazzo Litta

The Monumental complex of Palazzo Litta wes comissioned by Count Bartolomeo Arese, President of the Senate and was built between 1642 and 1648 by Francesco Maria Richini. Richini designed both the Oratory in the Clock Courtyard and the Courtyard of Honour which, with its square plan and porticos on each side, represents one of the finest examples of the seventeenth century Milanese courtyard. The Oratory became a theatre, which is still used to this day. Fascinating features of the Palazzo are the system of inner courtyards and the garden that opens out towards the Foro Bonaparte. From the middle of the eighteenth century the building passed through the female line, to the Visconti, the Borromeo and lastly to the Litta family taking on its definitive late Baroque look in the Lombard style. The spectacular scissor staircase was designed by Francesco Merlo and leads to the piano nobile with its pictorial decoration in the Lombard rococo style, largely the work of Glovemir Antonio Cucchi. In 1761 Bartolomeo Bolli built the elegant and unusual façade on Corso Magenta with large pilasters, an entrance with an imposing telamon on either side of it supporting the balcony and above, a pediment with the Litta family's coat-of-arms between two statues of Moors. The rooms were also enriched with decorations among these, Martino Knoller’s ‘The Marriage of Pluto and Proserpina'. A grand staircase leads to the piano hobile, with a square antechamber and a series of richly decorated vaulted rooms. The Red Room is decorated with precious damasks, the Mirror Salon with gilded carvings embellished with sculpted figures, the Yellow Room is a boudoir with Chinese silk tapestries and original eighteenth century furniture. The Palazzo was auctioned in 1873 to the Società Ferroviaria Alta Italia (later called Ferrovie Italiane). In 1996 the complex became the inalienable patrimony of the State and in 2007 the largest and most elegant section was given over to the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali-Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici della Lombardia (Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities-Regional Management for Lombardy's Cultural and Landscape Heritage), as their offices together with those of the Soprintendenza Archivistica della Lombardia (Lombardy Archive Superintendence) and for space to be devoted to scientific discussion and the promotion of culture., , , , -,