Italy Guide
Lombardy and the lakes
Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Halfway between La Scala and Porta Nuova, the eclectic Museo Poldi Pezzoli at Via Manzoni 12 Opening time: Tues– Sun 10am–6pmPrice: €8 
www.museopoldipezzoli.it comprises pieces assembled by the nineteenth-century collector Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli. Much of this is made up of rather dull rooms of clocks, watches, cutlery and jewellery, but the Salone Dorato upstairs contains a number of intriguing paintings, including a portrait of a portly San Nicola da Tolentino by Piero della Francesca, part of an altarpiece on which he worked intermittently for fifteen years. St Nicholas looks across at two works by Botticelli; one a gentle Madonna del Libro, among the many variations of the Madonna and Child theme which he produced at the end of the fifteenth century, and the other a mesmerizing Deposition, painted towards the end of his life in response to the monk Savonarola's crusade against his earlier, more humanistic canvases. Also in the room is the museum's best-known portrait, Portrait of a Young Woman by Pollaiuolo, whose anatomical studies are evidenced in the subtle suggestion of bone structure beneath skin.