Via Monte Napoleone
Via Monte Napoleone, also spelt as Via Montenapoleone, is an elegant and expensive street in Milan, Italy, famous for its ready-to-wear fashion and jewelry shops. It is the most important street of the Milan Fashion District known as the Quadrilatero della moda where many well-known fashion designers have their high-end boutiques and stores from Italian designers to all the world famous brands. The most exclusive Italian shoemakers maintain boutiques on this street.
In 2002 the Street Association start the project "Media" (viaMontenapoleone) including the Radio and the Portal, in order to relaunch the made in Italy and all that is trendy in the world through Milan undisputed capital of fashion. Sponsored by the Department Fashion, Tourism Major Events of the Municipality of Milan, Italy Fashion System, Assomoda, today is the first instrument of revival and information on Made in Italy worldwide.
Via Montenapoleone is also regarded as one of the most important 'streets in fashion', as Milan is recognized as one of the major fashion capitals in the world. Today, several of the world's top fashion houses have their headquarters, major offices or large emporia in the street.
History
The street traces the Roman city walls erected by Emperor Maximian. In 1783 a financial institution known as the Monte Camerale di Santa Teresa opened here in Palazzo Marliani, with the function of managing the public debt. In 1786 the street itself was named after the monte.[1] The bank was closed in 1796 but re-opened in 1804, when Milan was capital of the Napoleonic Italian Republic, as the Monte Napoleone: from this the street derived its current name. During the first part of the nineteenth century the street was almost entirely rebuilt in the Neoclassical manner with palaces inhabited by the highest of the aristocracy. Notable buildings from this period are the Palazzo Melzi di Cusano, the Palazzo Gavazzi, the Casa Carcassola, and the Palazzetta Tarverna. The much earlier Palazzo Marliani however, regarded as one of the finest houses to survive from the era of the Sforza, was preserved until its destruction during the Allied bombing campaign of 1943.[2][3][4][5]
After World War II, Via Monte Napoleone became one of the leading streets in international fashion, somewhat equivalent to Paris' Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, Rome's Via Condotti, London's Bond Street or Oxford Street, and Florence's Via de' Tornabuoni.
Caffè Cova, founded in 1817 and one of the city’s oldest cafés and confectioners, relocated to Via Monte Napoleone in 1950 from its original premisses next to the Teatro alla Scala.[6]
| List of brands in Montenapoleone |
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Gallery
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A beggar in via Montenapoleone, 2007 -
Delicatessen in Via Montenapoleone -
Gucci Shop, Via Montenapoleone -
Elegant shoes in a Via Montenapoleone boutique -
An arcaded boutique in Via Montenapoleone -
A portico in Via Montenapoleone -
The Caffè Cova delicatessen serving traditional Milanese cakes and desserts in Via Montenapoleone -
Designer shoes in one of the street's many shops
See also
45°28′06″N 9°11′43″E / 45.46826°N 9.19520°E
References
- ^ For a monte as a financial institution, cf. Monte di Pietà.
- ^ Alberto Trivulzio, ‘Via Monte Napoleone, perché si chiama cosi?’, Corriere della Sera, 5 October 1994, p. 47.
- ^ Davide Gorni, ‘Montenapoleone, la guerra degli sfratti milionari’, Corriere della Sera, 23 June 2003, p. 49.
- ^ Vittore Buzzi and Claudio Buzzi, Le vie di Milano: dizionario della toponomastica milanese (Milan: Hoepli Editore, 2005), p. 270
- ^ Milano, Guida d'Italia del Touring club italiano, 10th edn (Milan: Touring Editore, 1998), p. 292.
- ^ ‘The old Cova Café in the history of Milan’, pasticceriacova.com.
- ^ http://www.buccellati.com
