Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Town Hall 1
Arrival: via Enrico Besana, 12
Timetables: 7:00 - 19:00, summer time.
How to Get There:: tram 12/27 - bus 65/84/19 

Area 7.100 sqm.
Year of start of construction: 1695
Rotonda Architects: Francesco Croce, Attilio Arrigoni and Francesco Raffagno
Green landscaper: Elena Berrone Balsari 
Conservative restoration: 2010-2012

What to do at the park

• equipped play area; 
• walk under the portico;
• stop and relax;  
• seat of the MUBA, the Children's Museum, a permanent center for projects dedicated to children;
• occasional exhibitions;
• No access to animals.

The park in brief

The Rotonda della Besana, with its small internal garden, was created with cemetery functions in the 600s, when the burial ground of the Ospedale Maggiore proved insufficient. The Rotonda consists of a porticoed cemetery enclosure with the Church of S. Michele in the centre, now deconsecrated, used as an exhibition space and home to the Children's Museum. The portico is full of small suggestive glimpses of the greenery and features columns with skull-shaped capitals, testifying to the original function of the building. In the Napoleonic era the Rotunda and the garden were initially intended for the Pantheon, for which the Monumental Cemetery was then chosen; starting from 1782 the building was used as a hospital, barracks, barn until it was sold in 1939 to the Municipality of Milan which, after restoring it, used it as a public green and space for artistic exhibitions and cultural events. 

The flooring is gravel.