Alfredo Campanini built his own famous house with two caryatids at the door. Here, four years later, he let the Milanese Baroque back in.
At a glance
Casa Tosi, also called Palazzo Baratti, stands at Via Senato 28, on the ring of streets that follows the line of the filled-in Spanish moat. It was built in 1909 as a private residence to a design by Alfredo Campanini. The regional heritage record calls it a particularly significant building of early twentieth-century architecture within the floral current, and notes that the house, originally a dwelling, is now in office use.
History
Campanini (1873–1926) had built his own house in Via Bellini in 1904–06, one of the buildings by which Milanese Liberty is usually introduced. Via Senato, five years later, was a different commission: a smart address on the edge of the old city, for a client who wanted the new style without the polemic. The building has stayed in private hands throughout, which is why the interior fittings survive.
What you see
The style is Liberty, but the inflection is neo-Rococo, drawn specifically from the Milanese Baroque. The portal sits at the centre of the front, surmounted by a balcony whose leaf forms and wrought iron are Liberty in vocabulary and Baroque in curvature. On the first floor the main balcony is flanked by two smaller ones; on the floors above, every window has its own small balcony. Past the wrought-iron gate, the entrance hall keeps the original lift, enclosed in a cage of wrought iron worked with floral motifs.
Cultural significance
The received account of Liberty is that it broke with the historical styles. Buildings like this one show the break was negotiated rather than declared: Campanini, who could design a facade as radical as the one in Via Bellini, here chose to let two centuries of Milanese Baroque bend his curves. The lift cage is the other reason to know the building — a piece of everyday machinery treated as ornament, which is Liberty’s most characteristic move.
Key facts
- Architect: Alfredo Campanini
- Built: 1909 (regional heritage record: early twentieth century, floral current)
- Historic use: private residence; current use: offices
- Interior: original lift in a wrought-iron cage with floral motifs
- Address: Via Senato 28, Milan
- Coordinates: 45.4717 N, 9.1961 E
Practical information & getting there
Metro M1 Palestro or M3 Turati, about eight minutes on foot. The building is private and in office use, so the facade and the gate are what a visitor sees; the lift cage is visible through the gate when the hall is lit. The Giardini Indro Montanelli and Palazzo Dugnani are across the street.
Sources & resources
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