On Sundays in the Springtime, families, cyclists and sports enthusiasts in training populate the Naviglio della Martesana, the long navigable canal that connects Milan with the Adda river and which, since the Nineties, has been flanked by a bike path. The canal was designed by none other than Leonardo da Vinci, with the aim of connecting the city with Lake Como. Inaugurated by Ludovico il Moro in 1496, the strip of water of Martesana runs 30 kilometres from Cassina de’ Pomm, in Via Melchiorre Gioia, to Cassano d’Adda, passing parks, farms and historic villas. As early as the XVII Century, in fact, Milan’s nobility began to colonise the left bank of the canal, building their out-of-town residences. The first is in Concesa - the large Neo-Renaissance construction which, today, hosts Parco Adda Nord. Moving ahead, there is Villa Aitelli which can be seen from a distance with its octagonal tower, while Villa Borromeo is striking for its beautiful gardens and its Neo-Classical harmony with touches of the Baroque. Waving at the coypus, the cute rodents that inhabit the canal, we head South towards Gorgonzola to admire the old docks, the wash basins and the house-bridge. In Groppello d’Adda, finally, an old wooden watermill brings us back in time to its construction in 1618.
The Beatles in Italy: 60 Years Later, The Legend in Pictures
At Gallerie d’Italia in Milan, an exhibition revisits the historic 1965 tour through 62 selected shots from the Publifoto Intesa Sanpaolo Archive. Concerts, fans, and backstage glimpses bring back the Italian Beatlemania.
Twelve restored plaster busts by Antonio Canova, discovered in a villa in Veneto, are the highlight of a new exhibition at Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera, celebrating Neoclassical sculpture and the return of the marble Vestale.
A major retrospective exhibition, with over 300 original photographic works including vintage and period prints, documents and archive materials dedicated to the gentle genius of Italian photography - Mario Giacomelli - on the occasion of the centenary of his birth.
135 years after her birth, the Diocesan Museum of Milan recounts the peak of Dorothea Lange’s career, when between the 1930s and 1940s the American photographer bore witness to the dramatic current events in the United States.