Interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.3
Museums

Dante’s impressive 1856 studio at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli

Museum Poldi Pezzoli in Milan.
Museum Poldi Pezzoli in Milan.

The Poldi Pezzoli Museum is one of the most interesting museums in Milan, with a wonderful collection of fine and decorative arts from different centuries. It was opened in 1881, but the history of the collection begins much earlier.

Gian Giacomo Poldi-Pezzoli, who inherited his uncle’s vast fortune and Milanese mansion, began collecting art in 1849. By that time, he had already been hiding in Europe for a year due to the fact that in 1848 he supported the revolutionary uprising in Milan. But it was his trips to England, France and Switzerland, where Gian Giacomo got acquainted with the best examples of world art, that prompted him to become a collector himself.

Interior of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan.
Interior of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan.
Interior of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan.
Interior of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan.

For 30 years, Poldi-Pezzoli has managed to assemble an excellent collection, which includes works by such iconic Italian masters as Sandro Botticelli, Piero della Francesca, Francesco Guardi, Andrea Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, Filippo Lippi, Lorenzo Lotto, as well as numerous interior items, weapons , bronze, jewelry and much more. It was decided to make the Poldi-Pezzoli family mansion a museum for all these treasures.

For 15 years from 1846 to 1861, its interiors were transformed and each hall received its own unique look, stylistically oriented to the era whose items were exhibited in it. Neo-Renaissance, neo-baroque, neo-rococo, everything came together in this wonderful palace. By the time the museum opened in 1881, it had collected, though not the most impressive, but one of the strongest art collections in Europe.

Giovanni Bertini. Stained glass with Dante. Museo Poldi Pezzoli. 1850s.
Giovanni Bertini. Stained glass with Dante. Museo Poldi Pezzoli. 1850s.

But not only the collection is of interest in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. The mansion has one unique and very valuable room – Dante’s Studio, inspired by the Middle Ages and Dante’s poems. It was created between 1853 and 1856 by the talented Milanese artist Luigi Scrosati.

The basis for the decorative decoration of the Studio was the art of the XIV century. As you know, the XIV century is the era of flaming Gothic in Northern Europe, while in Italy it is the period of the Proto-Renaissance, called in the history of art “trecento”. At this time, for the first time, a departure from the medieval pictorial canon towards greater realism of images is planned. One of the most prominent representatives of the trecento was Giotto di Bondone, whose work marked the beginning of a new era in Italian art. And perhaps this is where the key to unraveling the room lies. Like once Giotto, Luigi Scrosati is looking for a new actual interpretation of the images of the Middle Ages.

Giovanni Bertini. Stained glass with Dante. 1850s. Museo Poldi Pezzoli.
Giovanni Bertini. Stained glass with Dante. 1850s. Museo Poldi Pezzoli.
Fireplace in the Dante Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
Fireplace in the Dante Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.

Its interior lacks that classical embodiment of Gothic that was characteristic of the Neo-Gothic movement of the 19th century. Neither lancet arches and pinnacles, nor decorative massworks, all this excessive late Gothic openwork, which began to be actively resurrected throughout Europe, is completely absent here.

Skrosati is trying to go further, looking for a new artistic language that will meet the present. And in this search, he surprisingly finds decorative images (floral motifs, intricate curls and waves) that will be characteristic of Art Nouveau 40 years later!

Thus, the Studio Dante, created in 1856, is absolutely unique for its time and can be considered the earliest protomodern interior in the spirit of the Pre-Raphaelites and the interiors of William Morris, whose Red House will appear only in 1861.

Interestingly, Luigi Scrosati did not have a systematic and deep professional education. In early childhood, he was taught by his mother’s brother, the decorator Ambrogio Scrosati. Then Luigi attended the Brera Academy for only 3 years (1835-1838), but this was enough for him to subsequently reveal his talent.

Walls of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
Walls of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
Ceiling of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.
Ceiling of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.

From the 1840s he worked extensively as an interior decorator, but mostly on collective commissions. The painting by Studio Dante was one of the artist’s first own commissions. Scrosati was able to get it thanks to his patron Giuseppe Bertini, who was a friend and artistic adviser to Gian Giacomo Poldi-Pezzoli. Another of its interiors with Art Nouveau features were the halls of the Villa Litta in Vedano al Lambro, painted at the same time in 1851 – 1855, but I have not yet been able to find photographs, they are known only from the words of specialists.

Just a year later, in 1857, a tragedy occurred, Luigi Scrosati’s paralysis of the lower extremities forever deprived him of the opportunity to be an interior decorator. He was forced to return to easel painting, taught ornamentation and the art of decoration in Brera, but did not live long, only 12 years.

Luigi Scrosati died in 1869 at only 54 years old. He never knew what an incredible style he envisioned, but I think he felt it. I felt that I was creating something great, loved it and gave it my all!

Details of the interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.3
Details of the interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.
Details of the interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.2
Details of the interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.
Interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.
Interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.
Interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. Ceiling.
Interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. Ceiling.
Interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.3
Interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.
Interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.2
Interior of Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.
Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.
Dantes Studio in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. 2019.
Views of the halls of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli at the beginning of the 20th century.
Views of the halls of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli at the beginning of the 20th century.
Views of the halls of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum at the beginning of the 20th century.2
Views of the halls of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum at the beginning of the 20th century.
Halls of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum at the beginning of the 20th century.
Halls of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum at the beginning of the 20th century.
Views of the halls of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum at the beginning of the 20th century.
Views of the halls of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum at the beginning of the 20th century.
Giovanni Bellini. Pieta. 1455. Mzei Poldi Pezzoli.
Giovanni Bellini. Pieta. 1455. Mzei Poldi Pezzoli.
Piero della Francesca. Saint Nicholas of Tolentinsky. 1460. Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
Piero della Francesca. Saint Nicholas of Tolentinsky. 1460. Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
Piero del Pollaiolo. Portrait of a girl. 1470. Museo Poldi Pezzoli.
Piero del Pollaiolo. Portrait of a girl. 1470. Museo Poldi Pezzoli.
Francesco Hayes. Portrait of Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli. 1851. Museo Poldi Pezzoli.
Francesco Hayes. Portrait of Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli. 1851. Museo Poldi Pezzoli.