Palazzo Recalcati Tagliasacchi

The Palazzo Recalcati Tagliasacchi stands at Via Borgonuovo 15 in Milan. The palace first rose in the fifteenth century, but the facade you see now is largely early nineteenth-century work. That renovation ran so deep that only the original portal and the cornice lacunars survived, as the commission d'ornato decreed. The frontage shows rustic masonry, a building style the eighteenth century favoured.

A grand portal framed by pilasters carries lion-head corbels, and a balcony sits above it. A shield rests at the keystone of the archway, a small piece of heraldry over the entrance. On the upper storey the windows carry floral motifs and female heads, ornament that was fashionable at the time.

Behind the street front the courtyard opens, its portico running along three sides. Ionic columns carry the architrave, and their capitals curl into scroll-like volutes, the signature of classical elegance. The house passed through three families: the Calchi commissioned it, the Recalcati followed, and the Tagliasacchi bought it in 1825. Pause under the arch as you go in: that portal is fifteenth-century work, older than the name the palace now bears.