Boschi di Stefano House Museum

In a quiet street behind Corso Buenos Aires, just a few steps from the Best Western Hotel City, is Casa Boschi di Stefano, a residence-museum that houses more than three hundred twentieth-century works of art collected with great dedication and passion by the spouses Antonio Boschi (1899-1988) and Marieda di Stefano (1901-1968).

The exhibition unfolds through the house where the couple lived for over 40 years. As visitors move from room to room, admiring works by Sironi, De Chirico, Martini, De Pisis, Fontana, they are immersed in an intimate and welcoming atmosphere filled with exquisite 1930s furnishings (some original, some added later), parquet and marble mosaic floors, ceilings decorated with concentric cornices, glass doors and windows with geometric motifs, including a distinctive bow window, all in a harmonious whole that immediately transports visitors to another era.

In 1929, the Marche-born building contractor Francesco Di Stefano commissioned Piero Portaluppi, the most popular Milanese architect of the time, to design an entire building for his five children on Via Giorgio Jan, behind Corso Buenos Aires, a neighborhood increasingly sought after by the Milanese bourgeoisie for its quiet, central location. Portaluppi’s style is evident in the simple geometric decorations of the façade, the use of wrought iron for the staircase railings, and the distinctive 45° windows on the corner of the building.

Marieda di Stefano moved in with her husband, engineer Antonio Boschi, in 1931. The two had met during a vacation in Valsesia in 1926 and immediately fell in love. Sharing a strong artistic sensibility, they married a year later and began a lifelong artistic and romantic partnership that led them to collect over 2,000 works, including paintings, furnishings, drawings and sculptures. They purchased them from various parts of Europe and the world, selected from both famous and emerging artists, always seeking a harmony of tastes and choices. Each new painting hung on the walls of the house until, as the collection grew, even the areas near the doorframes were filled with works of art.

As their passion for collecting grew, the couple forged friendships with painters and gallery owners and, in the years that followed, the second floor of the Boschi di Stefano house became a meeting place for the contemporary art scene, gathering not only to discuss art and new trends but also to entertain themselves with the music of the piano in the living room or the violin (a small collection of which is also housed in the museum).
Meanwhile, on the ground floor of the same building, Marieda had managed to set up a ceramics workshop, an art in which she herself was skilled — and of which the anthropomorphic vases on display in the museum are an expression — and to establish a small but vibrant training school. This part of the house is also open to the public and today houses some works by Roberto Crippa.

Among the more than 300 works exhibited in the house museum, there are some of particular strength, such as The Venus of the Ports and The Mountain Fairy by Sironi, Eldorado and The Great Mystics by Birolli, The Head of an Old Man by Boccioni, De Chirico‘s School of Gladiators, Fontana’s numerous Spatial Concepts, Arturo Martini’s sculptures The Collegials and The Victory, and many others, are displayed in 11 rooms in chronological order, allowing visitors to appreciate the various moments and souls of twentieth-century art.

Upon the death of his beloved Marieda, Antonio worked to reorganize the immense collection and make it accessible to the public, and in 1974 he donated it, along with the rooms and some of the furnishings, to the City of Milan. And as he himself wrote: “The collection was the joint work of my wife Marieda and myself, and therefore its name Boschi di Stefano is not a tribute to the memory of my companion, but corresponds to reality. The collection was a joint effort in the full sense: in the material sense, with the implications of decisions, dedication, financial sacrifices, and consequent sacrifices in other fields; and in the artistic sense, as a convergence of tastes, directions, and choices.”

A Milanese story that recounts, through art, the events and artistic spirit of a century and conveys its atmosphere intact.

The House Museum is free to visit; Touring Club volunteers are on site to provide a valuable introduction to the house.