Sforzesca Castle

Today we visited a new site, the Sforzesca Castle. It used to be the home of the rulers of Milan, the Sforza family. Now it is a nice grounds to visit and explore that includes many museums. We arrived in the afternoon, perhaps too late, and we only saw a handful of the exhibitions before we were kicked out at closing time. It was interesting enough to see different sculptures and suits of armor through the ages of Milan. At the end of the sculpture museum was one of the last works by Michelangelo, an unfinished Pieta. Because it was unfinished, it was interesting to see aspects of the process of marble sculpture, like how he changed the position of the head completely; one could see on the side of Mary's head, in her scarf, where he had originally wanted to place an eye, but later decided on the final position, with her head at a ninety degree turn.

Another interesting portion of the museums was the section on musical instruments. There were many pianos of different shapes and sizes, as well as many instruments in the violin family and guitar family. There are only so many table pianos and violins one can look at before they all start to look the same. However, I was very surprised that by the end of the exhibition, there was a room that covered early electronic music from the 50s and 60s. There were big, wall sized computers that consisted of transistors, switches, and vacuum tubes. They even had a score by an Italian composer named Bruno Maderna who composed music on these machines. It was unfortunate that they were closing and kicked us out while I was looking at this part of the exhibition.

Whether I enjoy those musical experiments or not (some I do, and some I don't), I find it very interesting and important in the history of music. I am always very excited when I see coverage of modern and contemporary art, especially in the old countries that are so celebrated for their earlier history. Everyone should realize that history is happening right now, and people who are making art today, no matter how strange you might think it is, are fundamentally the same thing as all the old masters, just with different methods, instruments, and ideas.

After walking exploring the Castle Sforzesca, we walked through a neighborhood called Brera. It was charming, just as all the small neighborhoods. The neighborhood was based around the art school as the focus. Because of this, there were many small art galleries lining the streets, and many cafes. After all, where should young art students gather and hang out besides smokey cafes?

At the end of the street was another church. What I found especially interesting about this church was that there was a plaque on the wall of the adjoining religious housing that Mozart had lived there for two months in 1770.