One family, three houses, in the same few streets — and this is the one where the architect stopped holding back: Romanesque arches, Gothic vaults, Renaissance loggias and Liberty ironwork, all on one corner.
At a glance
Palazzo Berri-Meregalli occupies a corner plot near Corso Venezia in central Milan, at Via Cappuccini 8. It was built between 1911 and 1913 to a design by the Piacenza-born architect Giulio Ulisse Arata, who also designed the ironwork himself alongside Alessandro Mazzucotelli.
History
Work here began alongside two other houses the Berri-Meregalli family commissioned in the same part of the city: Casa Berri-Meregalli in Via Mozart, and a second house in Via Barozzi. Of the three, this corner palace is the grandest and the one most often singled out by Milanese guides — a single family building its identity into a stretch of streets rather than a single address.
What you see
The corner facade carries a deliberately monumental weight, built from an exaggerated eclecticism: Romanesque stonework, exposed brick, arches and loggias sit alongside Gothic and Renaissance passages, all threaded through with the Liberty taste of the moment — carved putti, frescoes, and wrought iron by Alessandro Mazzucotelli. Inside the entrance hall, mosaics and ceilings by Angiolo D’Andrea and Pietro Adamo Rimoldi surround Adolfo Wildt’s sculpture La Vittoria (1919).
Cultural significance
Where most Milanese Liberty houses commit to one line — floral, geometric, or historicist — this one refuses to choose, stacking four centuries of architectural language onto a single corner and holding them together with Liberty ironwork and sculpture by some of the period’s most sought-after names. Read together with its two sister houses, it shows a single wealthy family treating eclecticism itself as a kind of signature.
Key facts
- Architect: Giulio Ulisse Arata (also designed the wrought iron, with Alessandro Mazzucotelli)
- Built: 1911–1913
- Decoration: mosaics and ceilings by Angiolo D’Andrea and Pietro Adamo Rimoldi; sculpture La Vittoria (1919) by Adolfo Wildt
- One of three houses commissioned by the Berri-Meregalli family in the same quarter
- Address: Via Cappuccini 8, Milan
- Coordinates: 45.4704 N, 9.2035 E
Practical information & getting there
Metro M1 Palestro or San Babila, a few minutes on foot from Corso Venezia. A private apartment building: the corner elevation is the visit.
Sources & resources
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