Palazzo Pertusati: A Noble Residence and Cultural Center in Milan
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page12 sections
History
The Pertusati Residence
Palazzo Pertusati, also known as Casa Melzi Pertusati, was a noble residence in Milan, Italy, constructed around the seventeenth century. The Pertusati family had lived there since at least 1697. Luca and Carlo Pertusati resided in the palace, Carlo kept his library there, and Francesco operated a small printing press on the premises. Contemporaries regarded it as one of the finest palaces in the Spiga district.
The family initially occupied the building as tenants. In 1721, they purchased it from the Ospedale Maggiore, which had inherited the property from Girolamo Carcano. The purchase established the palace more firmly as a Pertusati residence and supported the family’s growing position in Milanese society.
The Erculeo Garden and the Arcadians
Count Carlo Pertusati created a symmetrical French-style garden named Erculeo after a statue showing Hercules killing the Nemean lion, the monster defeated by Hercules in Greek mythology as the first of his twelve labors. The garden was considered one of Milan’s finest. It hosted the Milanese community of the Accademia dell’Arcadia, a literary and cultural academy founded in Rome in 1690 whose members adopted pastoral names and roles. The Milanese community was established in 1704, and Pertusati served as its Milanese pastor.
The Arcadian connection helped establish the Pertusati family, who came from Alessandria in Piedmont, among Milan’s nobility. It also gave the palace the name Casa delle Muse. Under Carlo, the residence became an important center of Milanese cultural life. His extensive library later formed part of the nucleus of the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, a major historic library in Milan, while his art collections included works from several Italian schools.
Francesco Pertusati and the Melzi Inheritance
Francesco Pertusati continued the family’s interest in art and modernized the palace while retaining a collection that included Italian and Flemish works. After his death in 1874, the property passed to the Melzi family through a kinship connection traced to Emilia Pertusati.
The Reduction of the Garden
The palace garden was progressively reduced during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1890, part of it was donated to the Pio Istituto dei Rachitici, a charitable medical institution for people with rickets, where the first nucleus of the Gaetano Pini institution was established. The municipality later expropriated further land for a connection between Piazza Ferrari and Largo Crocetta, corresponding to the unfinished Via Marchiondi. In 1924, another portion was transferred for the construction of the Casa della Meridiana.
After the First World War, measures were taken to protect and improve the remaining garden. An agreement reached in 1926 by the municipality, the Melzi sisters, and the Pio Istituto dei Rachitici provided for the removal of some recent structures, restrictions on further construction, and the completion of works on Via Marchiondi.
War Damage and Demolition
Allied bombing during the Second World War severely damaged the palace. The Pertusati and Melzi heirs subsequently arranged for its demolition, which took place in 1947. A group of residences was built over the ruins between 1955 and 1959. The former garden, now called the Giardino dell’Arcadia, is the surviving part of the palace complex.
Remains
The Palace
Facade
Palazzo Pertusati stood on Corso di Porta Romana and had three floors. Its facade was designed by Simone Cantoni, a Swiss-born architect who worked in Italy. The ground floor originally contained only narrow windows, with a French door added after 1800. An arched entrance portal carried a wrought-iron balcony, and a fresco of the Virgin, attributed to the seventeenth-century Milanese painter Giuseppe Nuvolone, stood to its left.
The noble floor had three balconies with parapets, including the largest balcony directly above the entrance portal. Projecting Ionic columns, whose capitals have scroll-shaped ornaments, were combined with caryatids, sculpted human figures used as architectural supports, and bas-reliefs.
Interiors
The interior followed a Baroque-Rococo style. Ceilings were decorated with gilded stucco, and the doors were richly painted white. Numerous statues and paintings formed part of the palace’s decorative and artistic contents, alongside the library and collections associated with the Pertusati family.
Courtyard and Staircase
Beyond the entrance portal, a small courtyard provided access to the residence. An eighteenth-century staircase covered in stucco rose from the courtyard into the palace.
The Giardino dell’Arcadia
The garden was first laid out in the Italian style and was transformed into an English-style garden around the middle of the nineteenth century. The surviving garden is entered through an old wrought-iron gate, probably recovered from the ruins of the original palace. It remains private and is reached through the residences built after the palace’s demolition.
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