#INSIDE - Milan. "Eterno e Visione. Roma e Milano capitali del Neoclassicismo"

#INSIDE - Milan, a series of meetings to coincide with the exhibition "Eterno e Visione. Roma e Milano capitali del Neoclassicismo". 

Meetings:

GALLERIE D'ITALIA - MILAN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2025, 6:30 PM - "Roma-Parigi-Milano: il destino della bottega Piranesi nel Neoclassicismo europeo" - curated by Pierluigi Panza

GALLERIE D'ITALIA - MILAN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2026, 6:30 PM – “Arriva Napoleone a Milano. Vita di città e vita di campagna" - Stories, Images, and Readings with Marta Boneschi e Franca Pizzini

GALLERIE D'ITALIA - MILAN, THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2026, 6:30 PM – "Match Roma vs Milano: eterno e visione a confronto” -  curated by Aldo Grasso Piero Maranghi and Leonardo Piccinini

GALLERIE D'ITALIA - MILAN, THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2026, 6:30 PM - "Canova svelato. L’uomo, il marmo e il capolavoro" - cutared by  Jacopo Veneziani.

Concerts:

PALAZZO MARINO, SUNDAY, MARCH 8, 2026, 11:00 AM – "Austerlitz e il salotto. La rivoluzione del quartetto" - Concert

PALAZZO MARINO, SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2026, 11:00 AM – "Soirée a Villa Paolina" - Concert

PALAZZO MARINO, SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2026, 11:00 AM – "L'eco di Napoleone: Variazioni su un'epoca in rivoluzione" - Concert

Date: Thursday 18 December 2025
Place: Gallerie d'Italia - Milan
Time: 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Format: meeting 
Speakers: Pierluigi Panza

Venetian architect Giovan Battista Piranesi, known for his etchings of Rome, left his son Francesco a successful antique shop, which restored antiques and sold them throughout Europe. Together with his brother Pietro, Francesco founded Manifattura Piranesi, which spread a taste for antiques throughout Europe through various partnerships. Francesco also entered the service of the King of Sweden before becoming a Jacobin, a leading figure in the Roman Republic, and then an exile in Paris. From there, he approached Eugène de Beauharnais with a view to transferring the family business to Milan, but the attempt failed. This failure marked the end of the Piranesi family's artistic adventure.

Curated by Pierluigi Panza

Date: 15 January 2026
Place: Gallerie d'Italia - Milan
Time: 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Format: meeting 
Speakers: Marta Boneschi and Franca Pizzini

Stories, pictures and readings with Marta BoneschI and Franca Pizzini.

15 May 1796, General Napoleon Bonaparte enters Milan. With his army of the people, he unleashes a wave of innovation that sweeps through the lives, society, ideas, customs and tastes of the people of Milan.
The conquerors are merciless with their arrogance, requisitions and seizure of works of art, but part of the city is ready to welcome them, because it has absorbed the philosophy of the Enlightenment and the value of freedom, speaking, reading and writing in French more than in Italian, and hoping for a step forward in terms of civilisation.
The Milanese aristocracy, however, was traditionally linked to the Habsburgs, so opposing factions formed within the same families. Women, who are now called “citizens” and can be educated in new schools, adopt the Parisian fashion of expressing their opinions. After an initial moment of fear and heavy taxes to pay, some nobles open their lavish palaces to Napoleon's forces. The transition from the Ancien Régime to the Restoration takes place both within those elegant, ancient walls and in the splendid country villas. Meanwhile, neoclassical Milan becomes romantic Milan.

Curated by Il Circolo dei Lettori di Milano

Date: Thursday 5 March 2026
Place: Gallerie d'Italia - Milan
Time: 5:30 - 7:30  p.m.
Format: meeting 
Speakers: Aldo Grasso Piero Maranghi and Leonardo Piccinini

Match. Hosted by Aldo Grasso, two cultural figures with opposing or divergent ideas, Piero Maranghi and Leonardo Piccinini, engage in a debate: Rome or Milan?
Rome is the city of the Eternal: tradition, monumentality, a sense of the sacred and myth, where art is part of the urban fabric: from the Colosseum to Bernini, from Caravaggio to Piranesi, right through to the contemporary scene. Milan is the city of Vision: innovation, experimentation, international networking. Capital of galleries, design and fashion, where art meets business and communication. Who will win?

Curated by Aldo Grasso Piero Maranghi and Leonardo Piccinini

Date: Thursday 12 March 2026
Place: Gallerie d'Italia - Milan
Time: 5:30 - 7:30  p.m.
Format: meeting 
Speakers: Jacopo Veneziani

Exactly who was Antonio Canova? Not only was he the genius who restored sculpture to its former glory, he was also a man with a radiant presence, capable of inspiring confidence at first glance. This meeting traces his cosmopolitan life - between Rome, Venice, Possagno and the European courts - and tells the story of the man behind the myth: his extraordinary talent, his illustrious friendships, the daily discipline of his workshop and the insights that shaped a new ideal of beauty. A journey inside the work and character of an artist who embodied, more than anyone else, the luminous spirit of Neoclassicism, with a special focus on one of his masterpieces believed to be lost and now restored to the world thanks to an exceptional restoration.

Curated by Jacopo Veneziani

Date: Sunday 8 March 2026
Place: Palazzo Marino
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Format: concert 

As part of “Sounds and Battles in Napoleonic Europe”

This concert traces a path from the eighteenth-century salon to the threshold of Romanticism, a journey that reflects the profound transformations of an era poised between classical harmony and new, turbulent passions. Luigi Boccherini's Quartet in A major G213 delivers the world of the 18th century intact: its crystal-clear melodies, balanced forms and refined interaction between the instruments still speak the language of grace and moderation. Yet, in the central movement (Grave), a more intimate and melancholic feeling emerges, a harbinger of imminent change. With Ludwig van Beethoven's Quartet Op. 59 No. 1 “Razumovsky”, the ground begins to shake. Here, music becomes grandiose architecture, a field of forces in tension. Like a general on the battlefield, Beethoven deploys his thematic cells in an organised assault: his musical ideas wrap around each other, break apart, chase one another in an unstoppable motion, until the final, powerful and transfigured reconquest.

Date: Sunday 15 March 2026
Place: Palazzo Marino
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Format: concert 

As part of “Sounds and Battles in Napoleonic Europe”

In the residences and salons of noble families in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, such as Villa Paolina in Rome, it was common to organise soirées, evenings dedicated to socialising and listening to music. These events allowed guests to share cultural moments and hosts to show off their musical taste and refinement. At the centre of the soirée was the fortepiano, an instrument that was rapidly gaining popularity and was played in accompaniment of both solo singing and instrumental pieces for keyboard. The repertoire included romances and ariettas, transcriptions of operatic arias, fantasies on famous themes and popular songs reinterpreted for fortepiano. Works by Paisiello, Cimarosa and Paër were performed at Villa Paolina, along with Neapolitan pieces and compositions by Clementi for keyboard, in an ongoing dialogue between classical music and local tradition. But it was not just entertainment: these events were an opportunity for social and cultural prestige, reflecting the sensitivities and aspirations of the Roman nobility and families linked to the Napoleonic court.

Date: Sunday 22 March 2026
Place: Palazzo Marino
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Format: concert 

As part of “Sounds and Battles in Napoleonic Europe”

Napoleon Bonaparte was a great lover of music and patron of opera houses. His favourite composers included the Italian Giovanni Paisiello, appreciated for his melodic elegance and formal clarity. Beethoven's variations on the aria “Nel cor più non mi sento” — taken from Paisiello's Nina — are a youthful tribute to Italian bel canto, reinterpreted through the brilliant language of the young Beethoven. Sonata Op. 57, known as the “Appassionata”, was composed during the Napoleonic Wars: some sources mention that manuscripts of the work circulated during the French occupation of Vienna in 1805, reflecting the dramatic atmosphere of the period. Switzerland also underwent profound changes. Occupied in 1798 and transformed into the Helvetic Republic, it witnessed the strengthening of the patriotic myth of William Tell as a symbol of resistance to tyranny. This figure inspired La chapelle de Guillaume Tell from Franz Liszt's Années de pèlerinage, a poetic evocation of the same scenarios that would later inspire Rossini. The programme ends with the Allegretto from Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, composed at the height of the Napoleonic Wars and first performed in Vienna in 1813, during a charity concert in aid of soldiers wounded in battle against the French army.