The Museo del Duomo was born out of the very 600-year history of Milan Cathedral, from which all the works on display in the original come. The Museum is located in Piazza del Duomo 12, inside the Royal Palace, and is a preparatory place for visiting the cathedral: a cozy and quiet place where sculptures can be admired up close, enjoying the colors of the marble and the details of unique works of art, often placed on the Monument at dizzying heights.
The tour opens with the Treasury, owned by the Metropolitan Chapter. It then continues by telling the story of the Cathedral through the centuries: the statues, stained glass windows, paintings, tapestries, architectural models, terracottas and plaster casts. What emerges is the choral nature of the Duomo enterprise, of slow and patient, centuries-long work, of famous and not-so-famous artists, of workshops that cross each other speaking different languages, but who understand each other and masterfully create the decoration of the Cathedral.

THREE MAJOR DISPLAYS
Always located in the ground-floor rooms of the Royal Palace, the first Duomo Museum was inaugurated in 1953, with layout by Ugo Nebbia; in 1974 the second version curated by Ernesto Brivio; and finally in 2013 the Great Duomo Museum was reopened in grand style with layout by Guido Canali. The museum has grown over the years and has enriched its halls and collections in relation to the patient work of replacing the deteriorated works that for a variety of conservation reasons (particularly after the vicissitudes of the war), were pulled down from the Cathedral.