Palazzo Morando

Palazzo Morando, the countess’s house on Via Sant’Andrea

Palazzo Morando’s painted and gilded rooms open onto Via Sant’Andrea, in the Quadrilatero della Moda, Milan’s fashion district, and for now you can walk through them for free. On the same floor there’s a picture gallery of how Milan looked over three centuries, and at certain times of the year the city’s collection of clothes goes on show in some of the rooms.

The house went up at the end of the 16th century, and noble families lived in it until 1903. That year it became the home of Countess Lydia Caprara di Montalba and her husband, Gian Giacomo Morando Attendolo Bolognini. In 1945, in her will, she left the palace and everything in it to the city of Milan, on condition that it become a museum.

Palazzo Morando entry: free for now, closed on Mondays

Milan’s council plans to bring in a €5 ticket here, and at MUDEC and the Risorgimento museum, whenever its new ticketing is ready, but no start date has been set.

With the last entry at 17:00, it’s a palace for the morning or early afternoon. Guided visits and groups are booked through CoopCulture.

The noble apartments: the Chinese gallery and the Sala Ercole

The museum takes the first floor, in two routes. The noble apartments face Via Sant’Andrea, and their frescoes and stucco show how the city’s grand houses were decorated between the 18th and 19th centuries.

Look for the Galleria cinese, decorated in the Chinese taste, the small gilded Salottino dorato, the Galleria dei busti and the Sala Ercole, from around 1780.

The Pinacoteca: Milan as it looked before

The second route, in the rooms over the inner courtyard, is the Pinacoteca, the picture gallery. It shows how Milan changed and how people lived in it, in public and at home, from the 17th century to the early 20th. It comes from the collection of Luigi Beretta, which the city bought in 1934; it was shown as the Museo di Milano in Palazzo Sormani and moved here after the Second World War.

Three pictures to find: Giovanni Migliara’s Arco di Porta Nuova (1843), Amanzia Guerillot Inganni’s Piazza del Duomo (1850) and Angelo Morbelli’s Le guglie del Duomo, the cathedral’s spires, from around 1917.

Fashion at Palazzo Morando, and Dal vivo a Milano

Since 2010, some rooms on the first floor have shown the city’s clothes and accessories, from the 17th century to the 21st, in rotation. To protect the fabrics, the dresses go on show only in temporary exhibitions at certain times of the year, and in the rooms of the Ala nuova, the new wing, those shows have included designers such as Marucelli, Roberto Capucci and Valentino. Whether any dresses are out at the moment isn’t announced, so if they’re your reason to go, ask the museum first.

The exhibition on now, Dal vivo a Milano (“live in Milan”), runs from 9 October 2026 to 31 January 2027: 130 photographs of a century of live music in the city, taken from the audience’s side. We haven’t found a separate price for it; the palace lists entry as free.

Palazzo Morando by metro: San Babila or Montenapoleone

The palace is at Via Sant’Andrea 6. San Babila, on the M1 and M4 metro lines, is about 450 metres from the palace, and Montenapoleone, on the M3, about 500. Tram 1 stops on Via Manzoni, 400 metres off, and bus 61 at San Babila or San Damiano-Corso Monforte.