Best museums in Milan: prices, the Monday closures and the free first Sunday

💡 The Short Version: Monday shuts most of Milan’s museums: the Museo del Novecento, the Gallerie d’Italia, the civic museums and Museoscienza. The Ambrosiana is closed on Wednesdays, and the Poldi Pezzoli and Fondazione Prada on Tuesdays. The Novecento is €10 and stays open to 22:30 on Thursdays, the Gallerie d’Italia is €6 and its entrance is Via Manzoni 10 until 25 November 2026, the Ambrosiana is €20, Museoscienza €13 and Fondazione Prada €15. The first Sunday of the month is free at the Novecento, the Gallerie d’Italia and the civic museums, with the next on 1 November and 6 December 2026. Prices are in euros. Or book a tour: the Museoscienza ticketad is from €13 and the Fondazione Prada ticketad from €16 (GetYourGuide).

Closed days and free days

Prices are the adult rate from each museum’s own site, for the permanent collection. The Sforza Castle, Brera, La Scala’s museum and the Last Supper have their own pages.

The civic museums also close on 25 December, 1 and 6 January, Easter Monday and 1 May. What to book in Milan has the hours for every sight.

Free days and passes

• First Sunday of the month: free at the Museo del Novecento, the Gallerie d’Italia, the Archaeological Museum, the Civic Aquarium, the Natural History Museum, the GAM and the Sforza Castle museums, and at Brera with a reservation. The GAM takes no bookings for the free Sunday. The next are 1 November and 6 December 2026, and 3 January 2027.
• Second Tuesday of the month: the civic museums are free for visitors up to 25.
• Tourist Museum Card: €20 for one entry to each of six civic museums over 3 days, which pays from the third. Milan City Pass: is it worth it? has the sums.
• Case Museo card: €25 for one entry to each of the Poldi Pezzoli, the Bagatti Valsecchi, Casa Boschi di Stefano and Villa Necchi Campiglio.
• Ambrosiana discount: €15 for holders of a Gallerie d’Italia ticket, a full-price Duomo Pass or a Duomo Fast-Track ticket, and others the museum lists.

Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

€20 with the Crypt of San Sepolcro · closed Wednesdays · Piazza Pio XI 2

The Ambrosiana names three works as its masterpieces: Leonardo’s Portrait of a Musician, Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit and Raphael’s cartoon for The School of Athens. It is open every day except Wednesday, 10:00 to 18:00, and the ticket office closes at 17:15. Over-65s pay €15, ages 6 to 14 pay €5, under-18s and university students pay €13, and ages 0 to 5 are free. Reserving adds €1.50 a ticket. The audio guide is €4 on the web app or €5 on a device. The Biblioteca Ambrosiana’s reading room is for registered readers, not a ticketed visit.

Museo del Novecento

€10 · closed Mondays · open to 22:30 on Thursdays · free first Sunday · Piazza Duomo 8

The Museo del Novecento is in the Arengario, beside the cathedral, and shows over 300 works of 20th and 21st-century art on routes through Futurism, the 1920s to 1940s, the Fontana Room, the 1950s and 1960s, and the 1960s to 1990s. Reduced tickets are €5 for over-65s, university students and ages 18 to 25. Under-18s are free, and the audio guide is free. The last entry is an hour before closing. The second Tuesday of the month is free for visitors up to 25.

Gallerie d’Italia

€6 · closed Mondays · free first Sunday · entrance Via Manzoni 10 until 25 November 2026 · Piazza della Scala 6

The Gallerie d’Italia winds through three historic buildings between Piazza della Scala, Via Manzoni and Via Morone. Its permanent displays are the Nineteenth Century, with the Fondazione Cariplo collections, the Cantiere del ‘900 for 20th-century art, and the Caveau. Reduced tickets are €3, under-26s are free, and the cloakroom is free. Until 25 November 2026 inclusive the museum is entered from Via Manzoni 10, not Piazza della Scala. Admission is free on Wednesday 4 November 2026 as well as on the first Sunday. A Gallerie d’Italia ticket takes the Ambrosiana’s price down to €15 and the La Scala museum’s to the reduced €8.

The Gallerie d’Italia building on Piazza della Scala. Photo: Paolobon140, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Museo Poldi Pezzoli

€15 · closed Tuesdays · Via Manzoni 12

The Poldi Pezzoli is a house museum, open Monday and Wednesday to Sunday 10:00 to 18:00 with the last admission at 17:30. Reduced tickets are €13, and ages 11 to 18 and students up to 26 pay €10. The audio guide is €3. The museum is closed on 1 January, Easter, 25 April, 1 May, 15 August, 1 November, 8 December and Christmas.

Museoscienza

€13 · closed Mondays · Via San Vittore 21

The Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci holds the Leonardo da Vinci Galleries, a Space exhibition with lunar rocks and the Vega launcher, the Enrico Toti submarine, the Conte Biancamano ocean liner, locomotives and aeroplanes. Booking is recommended. Ages 3 to 26 with ID, over-75s and groups of ten or more pay €8, and under-3s are free. The guided tour inside the submarine is €10 on top, in Italian only, and cannot be bought alone. Interactive laboratories and tours in Italian run at weekends and on holidays. Since 15 September 2026 the museum has opened Tuesday to Friday 9:30 to 17:00 and at weekends 9:30 to 18:30, and it is also open on Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 December 2026. Metro M4 to Sant’Ambrogio is the nearest stop.

The Enrico Toti submarine at the science museum. Photo: Jakub Hałun, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fondazione Prada

€15 with the Osservatorio · closed Tuesdays · Largo Isarco 2

Fondazione Prada is in the south of the city. One €15 ticket covers the Milan venue and the Osservatorio in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II for 30 days, and the Osservatorio alone is €10. Concessions are €12. The permanent works include Thomas Demand’s Processo Grottesco, Robert Gober’s installation with Louise Bourgeois’s Haunted House, Godard’s Le Studio d’Orphée and Andreas Slominski’s Die Geburt des Buches aus dem Geiste der Natur. Free hour-long tours run at weekends, in English on Saturday at 15:00 for the Atlas works and on Sunday at 15:00 for Haunted House. Metro M3 to Lodi T.I.B.B., tram 24 or bus 65 reach it.

Triennale Milano

Free entry · Museo del Design Italiano €14 · closed Mondays · Viale Alemagna 6

Entry to the Triennale is free and open to everyone; a ticket is needed for some exhibitions, theatre performances and concerts. The Museo del Design Italiano, on the ground floor, shows about 400 objects from the 1920s to the 2000s, and tickets bought online are €2 cheaper than at the ticket office. The building is open Tuesday to Sunday 10:30 to 23:30, the exhibitions close at 20:00, and the Giancarlo De Carlo garden is open from April to October.

The civic museums

Archaeological Museum €5 · Civic Aquarium €8 · Natural History Museum €10 · GAM €8 · all closed Mondays

The Comune runs the Archaeological Museum at Corso Magenta 15, which exits through San Maurizio, the Civic Aquarium, the Natural History Museum and the GAM. Reduced tickets are half price for over-65s, university students and ages 18 to 25, and ages 0 to 17 are free. The ticket office closes at 16:30.

Where to buy

What to book in Milan has the closed days for every sight. The Milan historic centre walk passes the Gallerie d’Italia, Palazzo Citterio, the Pinacoteca and the castle museums. Milan with kids sorts the museums by age, and Leonardo da Vinci in Milan covers Museoscienza’s Leonardo galleries and the Ambrosiana’s Portrait of a Musician. Free things to do in Milan has the first-Sunday rules. 3 days in Milan builds a Monday plan from the open sights. The Duomo is open on Mondays. For a bed, see where to stay in Milan.