The work came to light in 1846 about 80 cm below the ground near via San Primo in Milan: the discovery at a shallow depth and in the circuit of the fortifications allows the hypothesis that it was used as a construction material for the walls. . The sculpture features the effigy of a mature woman with a physiognomy characterized by high cheekbones, huge wide eyes, and a perfect face shape. The garment is richly adorned with a high ribbed bonnet decorated with a pearl diadem with an oval gem in the center. The high quality of this portrait, which makes it one of the most significant examples of Byzantine art in the West, raises the problem of its identification. Variously interpreted as the empress Theodora (517-584), wife of Justinian, or as Justina, mother of the Western emperor Valentinian II, the work is placed in balance between impersonal evocation of majesty and naturalism, thanks to the association between the individualized rendering of the physiognomic features and an essential treatment of the volumes.

The recumbent figure, that is gisant, is part of the sep

Purchased in 1811 by decision of the Brera Academy commission, made up of artists and scholars, the work was originally placed on the altar of San Sigismondo in the Malatesta Temple of Rimini, from which it was removed in 1581. The very high quality of the bas-relief testifies to the full maturity reached by Agostino di Duccio, when the Tuscan formation, between Donatello and Ghiberti, merges into a completely personal figure, dominated by a harmonious and elegant linearism. Carved in very low relief, the slab is dedicated to St. Sigismund, Christian king of the Burgundians, depicted during a pilgrimage made with his second wife to atone for the killing of his son. Agostino di Duccio represents the crucial moment in which an angel appears in the royal procession indicating the place in which to found the monastery of Agauno, today Saint-Maurice-en-Valais. The attitude of the angelic figure and the fluctuating rendering of the drapery recall the figurative characters of an ancient maenad, a tangible sign of the declared adherence to the classical language adopted by the Tuscan artist.

The harmonious composure of the monument, the quality of the sculptural details and the profusion of the decorative apparatus, where the gold leaf almost completely covers the marble, make the work a masterpiece of Lombard statuary. Bernabò Visconti (1323-1385), riding his imposing steed with the stick in his hand, is flanked by the allegorical figures of Justice and the Fortress. The group, a single block of Candoglia marble, was commissioned by him by 1363. On his death, his nephew Gian Galeazzo ordered to complete the ark by assembling a sarcophagus sculpted by Campione workers and reassembling the various parts in the palatine church of San Giovanni in Conca. The attribution of the work to Bonino da Campione in its later stages remains the most authoritative. The artist was responsible for the design and execution of the figurative elements of the Ark of Cansignorio della Scala (Verona, Arche Scaligere), brother of Beatrice della Scala, consort of Bernabò, whose tomb is traditionally identified in the monument exhibited in II room (inv. no. 858), also from San Giovanni in Conca.

The slab reached the Sforzesco Castle in 1926 from the church of Santa Maria Beltrade, which was demolished following the works that involved the homonymous square located near via Torino. The work presents, within a frame with smooth moldings, the winged symbols of the Evangelists depicted in the act of holding an open Gospel each. A complex graphic rendering characterizes the details of the plumage of the wings, the lion's mane, the linear folds of the angel's tunic and the scale motif on the body of the eagle. The clear definition of the contour lines and the gradation of the thicknesses of the relief combine to highlight the plastic effect of the symbolic figures of the Evangelists. Together with the slab with the procession of the Madonna "Idea" (inv. No. 630 bis, room VI), which belonged to the same place of worship, the work is an important iconological testimony linked to the Po Valley Romanesque language. Following the restoration (2006) it is possible to advance the hypothesis that the slab with the symbols of the Evangelists served as an architrave perhaps for the main entrance of the church; the dating is placed within 1130.

The portal was the main entrance to the so-called Banco Mediceo, the palace donated by Francesco Sforza to Cosimo de 'Medici in 1455, home to the bank branch headed by Pigello Portinari, located in via dei Bossi. Already destined to be exported to England, the monument was acquired in 1864 by the Museo Patrio Archeologico thanks to the joint financial effort of private citizens, the State and the Municipality of Milan. Although the construction events of the building are particularly rich in letters and notarial deeds, the final document that ascertains the name of the architect and explains the role played by the Lombard masters called to work on that undertaking commissioned by the Medici family is missing. Antonio Averulino, a Tuscan architect called to various construction sites promoted by Francesco Sforza, has the role of witness of the "splendid factory" described by 1464 in his Treaty of Architecture. An exuberant decoration covers the shoulders, the archivolt and the tympanum of the portal, filling the entire surface with natural and allegorical figures, fluted pilasters, frames, coats of arms, emblems and mottos enveloped in plant ornaments; finally, within clypei pods, the profile busts of Francesco I Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti.

The work, purchased in Venice by Giuseppe Bossi, entered the Museo Patrio di Archeologia in 1864 together with the important collection of the secretary of the Brera Academy. Its readability is possible despite the state of a fragment and the absence of the median element, perhaps a sculpted religious figure. Thin slabs of stiacciato-worked marble make up a rigorous perspective framework: in this illusory space of Renaissance measurement, two groups of singing angels are barely detached from the background, at the sides of the central compartment. The refinement of the relief, the skilful ability to modulate the poses and physiognomies, the classic composure of the scene characterize the work but do not allow doubts about the identity of its author to be dissolved. The soft treatment of the surfaces, slightly rippled, and the virtuous technique of representing the descriptive details, modulated with significant variations, suggest looking for the author among the masters who worked in Venice in the last decades of the fifteenth century.

The large archway constitutes the only surviving part of the external façade of the Pusterla dei Fabbri, a secondary access that opened into the walls of Milan built starting from 1171. Originally located near the current Piazza Resistenza Partigiana, it is possible that the name of the monument derives from the metalworking workshops located nearby. The artifact consists of a round arch characterized by mighty marble ashlars concluded by an acute-angled ring, of simple and harmonious workmanship in the measures and in the interlocking system. On the two tax bases, the presence of tiny protomes should be noted: on the left, the relief of a bearded man with large wide eyes; on the right, that of a lion with open jaws. In 1902, after a heated debate in defense of on-site conservation, the monument was moved to Castello Sforzesco on the decision of the City Council. Since 1956, the Pusterla de Fabbri has been moved to Room I, where with its solemn grandeur it signals the start of the architectural and sculptural path of the Museum of Ancient Art.

In Milan, the medieval wall rebuilt starting from 1171 received a particular ornament thanks to a series of statues placed at the top of the main doors, works commissioned by Azzone and Giovanni Visconti, between 1336 and the mid-fourteenth century. The Tuscan Giovanni di Balduccio was called to design the entire series, but his autograph intervention is revealed only on some specimens. The sculptural complexes of the city gates have survived the wall structure and from the beginning of the nineteenth century the statues became part of the heritage of the Museum, starting with the nucleus of Porta Orientale, demolished in 1818. Recent is the entrance of the five statues placed on the Porta Ticinese aedicule, replaced by 1961 by marble copies. In addition to the Madonna enthroned with the Child and Sant'Ambrogio which offers the model of the sestiere, figures that also appear in the other groups, the sequence of Porta Ticinese presents San Pietro martire, San Lorenzo and Sant'Eustorgio, owners of the most important places of cult of that area.

Refined example of the variety of solutions that intertwining ornamentation assumes in the Carolingian age, the work is the projecting part of an ambo, called lettorino by virtue of its function as a place for reading sacred texts. The slab was obtained by reusing the base of a Roman monument of which an evident trace remains in the inscription that runs on the upper edge, dating back to the 2nd century AD. The external front, enclosed by a simple molding, is crossed by a ribbon that is knotted forming nine skeins, distributed in rows of three, connected diagonally. The work, purchased in 1890 by the Municipal Artistic Museum, comes from the assets of Giovanni Battista Lucini Passalacqua. A fragment with the same skein motif is kept in Moltrasio, in the chapel decorated by Alessandro Lucini Passalacqua in 1863 with various finds perhaps belonging to the pre-Romanesque phase of the basilica of Sant’Abbondio in Como.