The Museum of the Basilica of St. Eustorgio, which together with the Basilica of St. Eustorgio and the Carlo Maria Martini Diocesan Museum is part of the complex of the Cloisters of St. Eustorgio, is composed of important monumental and historical-artistic testimonies that are very different from each other but of fundamental importance in the Milanese context, starting from the Paleochristian Cemetery, located under the nave of the church, where between 1959 and 1962 the remains of a late antique necropolis were found.
The Museum also includes the two monumental rooms of the Chapter House and the Monumental Sacristy through which you access the Portinari Chapel. The latter, a masterpiece of Lombard Renaissance architecture, was built between about 1462 and 1468 on commission by Pigello Portinari and is a fundamental testimony to the beginnings of a Renaissance language of Tuscan matrix grafted on to Lombard culture.
Of great importance is the rich plastic decoration, mainly in terracotta, which dialogues with the splendid frescoes by Vincenzo Foppa dedicated to the stories of Saint Peter the Martyr. At the centre of the chapel is the Ark of St. Peter the Martyr, an extraordinary testimony to Gothic sculpture, created by Giovanni di Balduccio between 1336 and 1339.
