The imposing and elegant Villa Reale is set in the Indro Montanelli gardens; it is also known as Villa di Belgiojoso in honour of the eponymous Count who commissioned its creation at the end of the 18th century. The sumptuous interiors of the Villa have housed the Galleria d'Arte Moderna (GAM) in Milan since 1921 and, in its long history, it provided lodgings to many illustrious characters. It had the function of representing Milano’s Authorities to those who came to visit from Vienna, before it eventually became a museum.
Adorned with mythological statues and reliefs, conceived by Neo-classical poet Giuseppe Parini and sculpted by the same artisans who toiled on the Duomo's facade, it is a timeless and immensely fascinating building.
Inside, a profusion of nineteenth-century masterpieces and international avant-garde works from the early 1900s make GAM one of the most extensive collections of modern art in Italy. Antonio Canova, Francesco Hayez and Lombard Romanticism, the most famous works of the Scapigliatura and the Divisionist season with Medardo Rosso and Segantini. Not forgetting the great Italian and foreign artists from the thirteenth to the twentieth century, with amazing works by Renoir, Van Gogh, Manet, Fattori and Segantini, Morandi, Sironi, De Pisis, Modigliani, Picasso and Matisse, together with a collection of ancient artefacts from the Far East!