Think of Milan and you think of fashion. The first time I spent more than a few hours in the city, I roamed the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II – Italy’s oldest shopping arcade, built in the 1860s and still home to the original Prada store, which was opened by the designer’s grandfather Mario in 1913 – wishing that I was rich (or at least, not quite so broke). What on earth is a girl with an overdraft and a fierce lust for buttery leather supposed to do in a place where everyone is so enviably well-dressed? In Milan, even the nuns look chic. In the end, I bought only one thing: an ice-cold negroni in the Camparino, the lovely, high-ceilinged bar that has been in the Galleria almost as long as Prada (Davide Campari first threw open its doors in 1915).
I still love the Galleria – wander through it as you walk from La Scala to the Duomo, which it conveniently connects – and I would tell anyone to have their evening aperitif at the Camparino, where the people-watching is unparalleled. But since my most recent visit, I’m able to see Milan not only with the eyes of someone hell bent on giving their credit card a bashing, but with those of an art lover, too. If you like painting and sculpture – in particular, if you have any interest at all in Leonardo, the city’s most famous adopted son – it is just the place, and one without the crowds and queues you can expect in, say, Florence or Venice.
At the extraordinary Chiesa di San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore – a church where almost every surface is covered with frescos, some of them by Leonardo’s pupil, Bernardino Luini – I was amazed to find myself almost entirely alone. Secreted away deep in its interior, I might have been one of the nuns who, long ago, received the Eucharist through a tiny door in its altar, the better that no man see any part of them.
A good thing to do, if you’ve only a weekend to spare, is to hire a specialist guide. Mine, Veronica Azimonti, was booked through my hotel, the Baglioni Carlton in Via Senato, from where we were able to walk to all the places I wanted to visit (and to a few of which I knew nothing until she mentioned them). She was wonderful: brisk, in the sense that she knew exactly where we had to be and when. But indulgent, too: happy to let me stare for a few long moments at the cakes in the window of Marchesi, Milan’s oldest pasticceria (perched on their old-fashioned stands, in shades of pink and green, they’re straight out of a painting by Wayne Thiebaud).
Where, I asked Veronica, is a good place for a lunchtime panini? Quick as a flash, the answer came back: De Santis. It has two branches: one in the Corso Magenta, tiny and old school; and one on the top floor of La Rinascente, the chi-chi department store that stands right by the Duomo.
But, anyway: art. What to see? I went first to the Pinacoteca di Brera, the city’s main public gallery, now all the more gorgeous thanks to a refurbishment masterminded by its charismatic British-Canadian director, James Bradburne. There I saw, at last, Mantegna’s astonishing Lamentation of Christ (1480), a painting notable as much for its weirdness as for its realism (the artist’s composition, you notice, unnervingly draws all of your attention to the groin of Our Lord’s dramatically foreshortened body). Also in the Palazzo di Brera is the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, a public library that sometimes doubles as a very special concert venue. That evening, I returned and saw the cellist Robert Cohen and pianist Clive Britton play a programme of Beethoven and Brahms, a treat that was only the more pleasurable for the chance it gave me to gawp at the Milanese intellectuals who made up the audience.
I also recommend the Brera’s majestic new cafe, where the espressos are strong, the pastries are sweet, and you may just feel – wear your grandmother’s best silk scarf, should you be in possession of such a thing – that you’re in a movie directed by Vittorio De Sica.
At the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, it’s possible to see, on any given day, selected pages from the Codex Atlanticus, the largest bound set of Leonardo’s extant drawings and writings. But surely the most surpassingly intense experience you can have in Milan is to pay a visit to see The Last Supper, painted by the artist in the 1490s, in the Refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Access to this, one of the most famous images in the world, is tightly controlled – only 30 people are allowed in the room at a time – and as a result, you can gaze at Leonardo’s fresco unjostled, your eyes entirely free to roam across its delicate expanses. The Last Supper is a narrative, not some static thing, and I was struck by its emotional realism: you can tell exactly what each apostle is thinking and feeling. Glance at the Crucifixion by some rather more obscure artist on the wall opposite and it looks so old-fashioned by contrast.
This minor epiphany, by the way, was very good for my credit card. Standing there, the feeling came over me that the best things in life cannot be owned and, sure enough, wandering through the city later, I did not have the urge to buy anything at all. Well, OK. That isn’t quite true. I did grab a small box of tronchetti when I dashed back, alone, to Marchesi. But liquorice comfits are a million miles from a Prada handbag, aren’t they?
Way to go
Baglioni Hotel Carlton offers a three-night stay on a B&B basis, including flights from Gatwick with easyJet, from £699pp when booked with Citalia. The hotel’s Leonardo da Vinci Tour costs from £325 for two people, including a three-hour guided tour of Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
