Visit the Museo del Novecento, conveniently next to the Duomo in Milan, for world-class modern Italian art from the 20th century.
Milan is often celebrated for its fashion houses, design fairs, and iconic Renaissance masterpieces such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. Yet tucked right next to Piazza del Duomo is another treasure: the Museo del Novecento, a museum dedicated to 20th-century Italian art. In an hour, visitors can get a full overview of Italian paintings and sculptures from the start of the century’s Futurismo to the Arte Povera installations of recent decades. Entry tickets are surprisingly cheap and easy to buy. The museum is also covered by the official Milan city pass and included in some art tours.
Exploring the Museo del Novecento Modern Art Museum in Milan
The Museo del Novecento in Milan opened in 2010 in the Palazzo dell’Arengario, right next to the Duomo, to display the city’s 20th-century art collection. The modern interior of the restored palace allows the collections to present a vivid narrative of modern creativity, but also gives visitors beautiful views of the cathedral.
The museum is not very big and is easy to visit. The around 300 artworks are spread over three floors but the exhibition halls are not very large. Although many important works are on display, most visitors will find it easy to enjoy the museum even without any prior knowledge of Italian modern art or the most important artists, such as Umberto Boccioni, Arturo Martini, and Lucio Fontana.
The name Museo del Novecento literally means “Museum of the Twentieth Century” in Italian. It reflects the museum’s mission: to showcase Italy’s artistic journey through the 1900s, from the bold experiments of Futurism to postwar abstraction, conceptual art, and the radical approaches of the Arte Povera movement. Unlike Milan’s two art powerhouses, the Pinacoteca di Brera, which highlights Renaissance and Baroque masters, or the Ambrosiana, renowned for Leonardo da Vinci’s manuscripts and historic collections, the Novecento offers a modern counterpoint focused entirely on the 20th century.
Why 900 if it is really 1900s?
In Italian, 900 (novecento) literally means “nine hundred,” but in a cultural context it is shorthand for the years 1900 to 1999, or the 1900s. That is why the museum is called Museo del Novecento: it displays art from the whole 20th century. By contrast, 1900 (millenovecento) means “one thousand nine hundred” and refers specifically to the year 1900 or to the prefix used in dates within that century, such as 1905 (millenovecentocinque).
A Journey into Modern Italian Art in Milan
The Museo del Novecento in Milan organizes its art collection in a way that is both chronological and thematic. Instead of feeling like a rigid march through decades, the galleries flow from Futurist dynamism to metaphysical stillness, from experimental abstraction to contemporary installations. The museum’s spiral layout helps: you ascend gradually, moving from one artistic wave to another, before reaching a spectacular climax at the top floor overlooking the Duomo.
For travelers, this museum provides an ideal counterbalance to Milan’s historic churches and Renaissance galleries. Here, art is alive with speed, color, and provocation. It is a story of how Italian artists responded to the industrial age, two world wars, political turmoil, and the shifting sense of what art could be.
Permanent Art Exhibition in the Novecento in Milan
The current permanent display in the Museo del Novecento in Milan is mostly chronological, with the art grouped in the following main themes:
- Futurism (Futurismo) — 1910s
- Controversial Modernities — 1920s-1940s (the Fascist interwar period)
- Sign and Matter — 1950s-1960s (renewal and rebuilding)
- Gestures and Processes — 1960s-1990s, includig Arte Povera installations
- Special Exhibition — works by Lucio Fontana
Futurism at the Core
The beating heart of the Museo del Novecento is its unrivaled collection of Futurist art. The Futurists, led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s fiery manifestos, wanted to burn bridges with the past and embrace the energy of modern life: movement, machines, noise, electricity. The Novecento in Milan has the world’s most important collection of Futurist artworks.
Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) is the star. This bronze sculpture, with its striding figure merging into aerodynamic forms, has become a symbol of Italian modernism. It conveys pure movement, as though the figure is dissolving into speed itself. The museum also displays paintings by Boccioni, including the States of Mind (1911) triptych and the Charge of the Lancers (1916).
Giacomo Balla captures rhythm and dynamism in canvases like Abstract Speed + Sound and his playful light studies. You can almost hear the hum of engines and the vibration of modern life.
Carlo Carrà (The Red Knight (Horse and knight), 1913) and Luigi Russolo expand this vision with fractured planes and urban energy, linking Italian creativity to the wider European avant-garde, as confirmed by a few contemporary works by Picasso, Ferdinand Léger, and Modigliani.
Seeing these works in Milan is particularly meaningful. This was the city where Futurism was born, and where its bold visions of progress found both acclaim and scandal.
Controvertial Modernity — Troublesome Interwar Years
The long interwar period in Italy included the 1920s, 1930s, and most of the 1940s. (It is easy to forget that fascism was established here more than a decade earlier than in Germany.) Some artists tried to return to the figurative art of the great masters, while others pursued the more international avant-garde ideas.
Artists in a Fascist World
From the museum description: “However, despite apparently alleging their support to the fascist regime on various occasions, these artists would only seldom add symbolical references to coeval events to their works, rather favouring the depiction of subjects suspended in an archaic and undefined time. This was the line of thought privileged by artists such as Mario Sironi, Carlo Carrà, and Arturo Martini, who tried to recover the time-honoured Italian pictorial and sculptural tradition.”
Metaphysical Worlds
From Futurism’s restless momentum, the museum shifts to the eerie stillness of Giorgio de Chirico, The Prodigal Son, 1922, and Fight (Gladiators), 1928-29. His metaphysical paintings, with empty piazzas, elongated shadows, and enigmatic statues, are haunting and dreamlike. They stand in sharp contrast to the Futurists’ dynamism but are equally modern in their challenge to perception.
The museum’s presentation allows visitors to sense the dialogue—and sometimes the clash—between movements. Futurism embraced speed; de Chirico embraced silence and a return to order. Together, they map out the range of Italian creativity in the early 20th century.
The Novecento displays several sculptures by Arturo Martini, who started his career as a Futurist. However, he returned to the more traditional style to become a leading public works sculptor during the fascist period.
Sculptures by Martini include the bronze Torso of a Young Man (1929), The Thirst (1934), and perhaps most interesting (or controversial), The Dead in Bligny Would Startle (1935). It refers to a speech by Mussolini claiming the dead in Bligny “would shudder beneath the earth that covers them” if France applied sanctions against Italy for invading Ethiopia in 1935. (Around 6,000 Italian soldiers were killed at Bligny while supporting France in 1918 — see Wikipedia for an easy explanation.)
Sign & Matter – Abstract Experiments of the 1950s and 60s
After World War II, Milan became a hub of design, architecture, and avant-garde art. Influenced by historical avant-gardes such as Kandinsky and Klee, Italian artists and designers broke free from the constraints of the fascist period.
The Museo del Novecento showcases abstract works that abandoned figuration for color, line, and form. It also displays many works that stretch beyond traditional painting and realistic sculptures.
Fausto Melotti’s delicate, musical sculptures feel like drawings in the air, combining geometry with lyrical elegance.
Osvaldo Licini, with playful symbols and biomorphic shapes, offers a poetic, whimsical version of abstraction.
Arnaldo Pomodoro‘s Sphere remains impressive decades on.
Special Lucio Fontana Exhibition
Two rooms are currently dedicated to the work of Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), who was educated locally at the Brera Academy. Fontana, famous for slashing his canvases, is represented in earlier experiments and his Concetti spaziali, where cuts open the canvas into real space. His work asks what painting can be, blurring the line between two-dimensional surface and sculptural object.
Several of his paintings and sculptures are currently displayed in the special Sala Fontana. His light production Spatial Ceiling is in the otherwise mostly empty room with the best views of the Piazza del Duomo and the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II.
Gestures and Processes (1960s-1990)
In the 1960s, a radical change could be appreciated in the language and operational mode of art. Or as the Novecento states: “The artist’s perspective shifted from the volume of a sculpture to the space created and defined by an installation.”
Later, the Arte Povera movement, represented by artists like Giovanni Anselmo and Michelangelo Pistoletto, challenged the boundaries between art and everyday life, using humble materials such as rags, stone, or mirrors.
Piero Manzoni is a mischievous presence, mocking conventions with his Achromes—canvases stripped of color and narrative. He even created the notorious 90 tin cans of Artist’s Shit (1961), a radical gesture that still provokes debate.
Mario Merz, Zebra (and Fibonacci) (1973), a typical Arte Povera work by this antifascist artist — combining here a zebra head with the Fibonacci number progression in neon lights.
Enrico Baj, The Funeral of the Anarchist Pinelli (1972). Where most of the museum’s descriptions are bone-dry and sleep-inducing, the long description of this work is well-written and engaging. (The full museum description is posted with the photo attachment above.) It is a comment on the neo-fascist bomb explosion in Milan and the death of the anarchists in police custody. (The investigating officer was assassinated the day the original exhibition was supposed to have opened.)
International Dialogues
Although the focus is on Italian art, the museum also places local artists in dialogue with international figures. A few works by Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Henri Matisse provide context, reminding visitors that Milan was part of a wider network of cultural exchange. The juxtapositions highlight both the originality of Italian modernism and its conversation with broader European currents.
Experiencing the Space
The Museo del Novecento is not just about looking at paintings on white walls. The design of the galleries encourages visitors to immerse themselves. Some rooms are intimate, focusing on a single artist’s oeuvre (Boccioni, Fonata), while others open up to sweeping views of the Duomo through large windows.
The spiral ramp that winds upward is a memorable feature. As you ascend, you feel the museum guiding you forward—an echo of Futurist energy. At the top, the reward is a panoramic view of the Gothic cathedral’s spires, a reminder that Milan is a city where past and present stand side by side.
Art Highlights Not to Miss in the Novecento in Milan
- Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space — an icon of modern sculpture.
- Giorgio de Chirico’s The Prodigal Son and Fight (Gladiators).
- Arturo Martini’s The Thirst and The Dead in Bligny Would Startle sculptures
- Lucio Fontana’s slashed canvases — revolutionary rethinking of paintings, sculptures, and spatial concepts.
- Enrico Baj’s The Funeral of the Anarchist Pinelli
- Piero Manzoni’s Achromes — playful, provocative minimalism, and of course, the anti-art tin can Nr 80 Merda d’artista.
- Arte Povera installations — art made from the simplest of materials.
Why the Museo del Novecento Matters
Travelers to Milan often focus on Renaissance and Baroque treasures. The Museo del Novecento reminds us that Italian creativity did not stop in 1600 or 1800. The 20th century brought upheaval and reinvention, and Italian artists were at the forefront of questioning tradition.
For an international visitor, the museum also fills in a gap. While Futurism, Arte Povera, and Fontana are names you might encounter in major exhibitions elsewhere, especially in the USA, here in Milan they are contextualized within their birthplace. You see not just isolated masterpieces but the threads that link them into a national narrative.
Walking through these galleries, you sense how Milan’s identity as an industrial and design capital fueled radical approaches to form and meaning. This is complemented on the ground floor, before exiting the museum, where visitors may admire or sit on the 25 different chairs produced by local furniture companies for famous designers ranging from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe‘s MR Side Chair (1927) to Piero Lissoni‘s Nebbia (2022).
Visitor Information: Museo del Novecento in Milan
Opening Hours
The Museo del Novecento modern art museum in Milan is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 19:30, but closing at 22:30 on Thursday.
The museum is closed on Mondays, 25 December, 1 January, and 1 May.
Even though the museum is not big — around 300 works are displayed — it is easy to spend an hour or more in the museum.
Entry Tickets for the Novecento Art Museum in Milan
Entry tickets are surprisingly cheap at €5 standard and €3 for youths 18 to 25 and seniors over 65. Children under 18 enter free.
Admission is free on the first Sunday of the month (time-slot reservation essential) but also on the first and third Tuesday after 14:00 every month.
The museum is also covered by the official Milan city pass and included in some art tours.
The cheapest online tickets are from Vivaticket but except for the busiest periods, walk-in tickets are usually easy.
Transportation to the Novecento Modern Art Museum in Milan
The Museo del Novecento (20th-century art museum), Piazza Duomo 8, Milano, is directly next to the Milan Cathedral. The closest metro station is Duomo, while many trams also stop nearby. However, few visitors travel specifically to see just this museum — the central location means it is easy to reach on foot from other central Milan sights.
More Tips on Milan Sights and Tickets
- Top Leonardo da Vinci Sights and Art to See in Milan
- The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci:
- How to Buy Tickets for the Last Supper,
- What to Expect when Visiting the Last Supper Museum,
- Tips on How to Buy Tickets or Book Tours for the Last Supper Museum — buy early or only guided tours are available,
- How to Get Free Tickets for The Last Supper and a step-by-step guide for booking free Sunday tickets,
- Booking Guided Tours of The Last Supper at GYG.
- Visit Chiesa di Santa Maria Delle Grazie — admission to the church next to The Last Supper Museum is free.
- Visit the Free San Maurizio Church — endless Renaissance frescoes in the “Sistine Chapel of Milan”
- Visit the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana — Leonardo Da Vinci’s Musician painting and sketches from the Codex Atlanticus.
- Visit the Pinacoteca di Brera — a world-class collection of Italian paintings from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.
- Visit the Museo del Novecento — for world-class modern Italian art from the 20th century (right next to the Duomo).
- Visit the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci
- Milan Duomo Complex:
- Cheapest Public Transportation to Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP).
- Book luggage storage in advance — close to transportation hubs is generally the better option.
- Book Last Supper Tours at Viator.
- Book Guided Tours for the Duomo, Last Supper, and other sights in Milano from Get Your Guide.
- Buy Admission Tickets for the Duomo and top sights in Milan from Tiqets.
- Buy Milan Guidebooks at Amazon.