Palazzo Borromeo D’Adda, is an 18th-century palazzo in

Milano Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city has ...

. Historically belonging to the sestiere di Porta Nuova, it is located at

via Manzoni Via Manzoni, is a busy and fashionable street in the Italian city of Milan which leads from the Piazza della Scala north-west towards Piazza Cavour. Notable buildings include the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, the elegant Grand Hotel et de Milan, which was ...

no. 39/41.Lanza pg. 170.

History and description

The palace that already existed in the 18th century was rebuilt in neoclassical forms from

1820 Events January–March *January 1 – Nominal beginning of the Trienio Liberal in Spain: A constitutionalist military insurrection at Cádiz leads to the summoning of the Spanish Parliament (March 7). *January 8 – General Maritime T ...

on commission of Marquis Febo d’Adda, a well-known patron of the times, who entrusted the project to Girolamo Arganini. The architect chose a late Neoclassical look for the façade and set it up with three portals, of which the central major one is decorated with double columns in

Ionic Order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

style in Ionic Order in pink

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

, supporting the balcony on the piano nobile. The twenty-five windows of the piano nobile are decorated with alternating triangular and curvilinear tympanums; the palace ends vertically with a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

with corbels, surmounted by an

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

at the centre of which is the family

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

. The interior of the palace has two courtyards, one of which is laid out as a garden; finally, worthy of note is the monumental staircase marked by

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

and

pilasters In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wall ...

ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

architravate. The palace is accurately described in his chronicles by

Stendhal Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, ; ), was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (''The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de P ...

, who was fascinated by it and had his first 'thunderbolt' with the architecture: 'I entered a magnificent court. I got off my horse in amazement and admiring everything. I went up a superb flight of steps .. I was fascinated, it was the first time architecture had this effect on me'.Lanza pg. 168.

References

Bibliography

Italian sources

*Attilia Lanza, Marilea Somarè, Milano e i suoi palazzi: porta Vercellina, Comasina e Nuova, Vimercate, Libreria Meravigli editrice, 1993. *Micaela Pisaroni, Il neoclassicismo, Milano, NodoLibri, 1999.

External links

Alla scoperta di Palazzo Borromeo d’Adda e del suo cortile
{{Authority control

Palazzo Borromeo d'Adda Palazzo Borromeo D’Adda, is an 18th-century palazzo in Milano. Historically belonging to the Porta Nuova (Milan), sestiere di Porta Nuova, it is located at via Manzoni no. 39/41.Lanza pg. 170. History and description The palace that already e ...

Neoclassical palaces in Italy