🏰 Milan | Sforza Castle 🌟

Sforza Castle is truly a grand fortress, with an imposing exterior, vast squares, towering walls, and turrets—the Sforza family, a military dynasty, is not to be taken lightly. 🛡️ Historically, the Sforza family began as condottieri (mercenary leaders), and you can see General Sforza in the series "The Medici: Masters of Florence." Later, when the ruling Visconti family of Milan had only a daughter left, Sforza II married her, and the title of Duke of Milan shifted hands, hence the importance placed on having male heirs. 🤴 The castle is square-shaped, covering a vast area with large green spaces. Walking around it, climbing the battlements to see the moat, and feeling the 7-meter-thick walls will take up a considerable amount of time. 🌳 On the other side of the castle, there's an archway called the Gate of Peace, with a moat beneath the nearby walls. You can see small windows on the walls; there used to be an underground passage leading to the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, nearly a kilometer away, and the windows were for lighting this passage. 🪟 Thanks to the ample space, Michelangelo's last work, "Rondanini Pietà," can be housed in a large room for visitors to admire. I've written about the "Pieta" sculptures before; this one is definitely a treasure of the museum. It is said that he was working on the sculpture on the last day of his life. Although it was not completed, the figures within are already emerging, making this unfinished work more intriguing than his previous two on the same theme. 🗿 Today, the castle has become a museum, and if you had to describe it in one word, it would be "comprehensive." It houses a rich collection of sculptures, frescoes, tapestries, furniture, household items, ceramics, jewelry, musical instruments, books, military artifacts, architecture, and courtyards... This is a typical private residence of Italian dukes, emphasizing art, collection, and pleasure... 🎼🖌️📚 Doing a bit of homework before visiting will make it more interesting, but even a casual stroll will be full of surprises, as if walking into a dream from hundreds of years ago, with ceilings painted by Leonardo da Vinci, Flemish tapestries, works by Lippi and Mantegna, Milan's largest park, and the bronze statues on the Gate of Peace... 🖼️🌿 If you have only one day in Milan, would Sforza Castle be your choice? 🤔 #WorthVisitingMuseum #NoteInspiration #ItalyTravel #EuropeanCastles #MuseumTreasureHunt #Milan #SforzaCastle