Milan - Palazzo Reale

Southeast of Piazza Diaz, in an area rebuilt since the Second World War (with the Torre Velasca, a 99m/327ft high office block erected in 1958), is the old Ospedale Maggiore, a brick building 285m/312yd long, the town's first hospital, begun in 1456 by Antonio Filarete and continued from 1465 onwards in Gothic and Renaissance style. It now houses the Rector's Office and two faculties of the State university.

500m/550yd east of the Ospedale Maggiore, between the broad Corso di Porta Vittoria and Via San Barnaba, rises the massive Palazzo di Giustizia (Law Courts), completed in 1940.

The rooms on the second floor of the Palazzo Reale house the Civico Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, the City's Art Museum, with works by modern Italian painters.

To the rear of the palace stands the old palace church, San Gottardo in Corte (c. 1330), with a fine tower (campanile). To the east the Archbishop's Palace (remodeled by Pellegrino Tibaldi, 1570 onwards) has a fine colonnaded courtyard.

On the ground floor of the Palazzo Reale is the Museo del Duomo (Cathedral Museum).

Adjoining the Palazzo Reale on the west is the Palazzo del Turismo, to the south of which is the Piazza Diaz, surrounded by modern buildings, including a 16-story office block.