Galleria Vittorio in Milan, prosecutors investigate concessions after Leonardo3 Museum complaint

Soldiers from the Milan Guardia di Finanza ’s Nucleo di Polizia Tributaria , Public Expenditure Group, went to the offices of the Municipality, Superintendence and Agenzia del Demanio in Milan yesterday to carry out checks on the acts of concessions to some well-known fashion brands for their stores in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and on the administrative paperwork for some events with installations that were also held in the gallery spaces. Reporting the news is Corriere della Sera. Little is known at the moment: the Via Solferino newspaper, however, makes it known that the show-cause order indicates that there are currently suspects, who, however, are not named (it is not even known whether they are private individuals or public administrators), nor is the hypothesis being investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office known. All that is known is that it is a crime against public administration, since the person signing the order is Prosecutor Grazia Colacicco, who belongs to this department of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The investigation, at any rate, concerns the licensing and permitting practices of some events.

The investigation, again according to what we learn from the Corriere, stems from a complaint filed with the Prosecutor’s Office by Massimiliano Lisa, founder and director of the Leonardo3 Museum, the museum on Leonardo da Vinci that is based in the gallery and has been at the center of a complex administrative battle for the past two years around the spaces in which the museum exercises its activities. The dispute pitting the museum against the City of Milan, according to several statements by Lisa himself, arose after he refused to share the museum’s entrance with the restaurant business that occupies the Gallery’s terrace: in fact, the elevator is the means that is also used to reach the tourist walkway on the gallery’s roofs, from where the city can be seen from above, and which is run by the same company, Duomo 21, that manages the Duomo 21 Terrace, or lounge bar overlooking the Piazza del Duomo. As a result of this refusal, according to Lisa’s reconstruction, the City Council allegedly objected to administrative irregularities (in particular, Palazzo Marino challenged the contract for subconcession of the spaces to the museum, which is not a direct concessionaire of the rooms: the subconcession was allegedly prohibited by the contract, and in 2024 the concession was, moreover, declared to have lapsed), and Leonardo3 in turn challenged the allocation of the spaces in the Gallery, which was, according to the museum, not fair and transparent and would have penalized museum activity in favor of other entities. The affair then reached the Lombardy Regional Administrative Court, which in March 2025 granted the museum’s precautionary request by suspending the effects of the municipal order denying the museum’s request for temporary occupation of public land, but deemed it necessary to investigate further by setting a public hearing for July 15, 2025. Last summer, the Tar, in a ruling published on August 22, dismissed Leonardo3’s appeal against the municipality, ruling that Palazzo Marino had acted correctly, and ordered that the costs of the litigation be offset between the parties. Lisa, commenting on the Tar’s ruling, announced her intention to appeal to the Council of State. In addition, also last summer, the City of Milan had sued Lisa for defamation because of some of her particularly harsh interventions against the city administration and judged, precisely, defamatory by Palazzo Marino.

The investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office was thus born as a result of this affair: in fact, Massimiliano Lisa, as the Corriere also reports, has repeatedly reiterated that the museum is the victim of unfair treatment and has therefore asked for transparency on other concessions and authorizations issued by the City Council in the Gallery. The director of Leonardo3, meanwhile, is also running for mayor of Milan for 2027, with the new political formation “Milano Libera,” and the deputy mayoral candidate would be Tiziana Siciliano, who until the end of last year (she is in fact retiring in December 2025) was deputy prosecutor in charge of the pool of contrasting crimes against public administration.

Galleria Vittorio in Milan, prosecutors investigate concessions after Leonardo3 Museum complaint

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