Pinacoteca di Brera

more pictures .:. The Brera Gallery takes its name from the district where it is located. It's Milan's most outstanding museum, recognized as one of the major art collections in the world.
.:. It was initially founded by the Hapsburgs in the late 18th century, as a collection of paintings, sculptures and plaster copies to be used by students of the Accademia (or Academy of Fine Arts). Its patrimony came from churches and estates of Catholic clerical orders that had been suppressed not long before. The building itself had formerly been the Milanese headquarters of the Jesuit order.
.:. The collection was dramatically enlarged during the Napoleonic era between 1799-1815, when it received an extraordinary number of artworks confiscated from churches and private collections in the French-occupied Northern-Italian regions: Lombardy, Veneto (and of course Venice), a large chunk of Emilia Romagna and the Marches. This was a direct consequence of Napoleon's policy towards the city. In Napoleon's view, Milan was destined to become a capital, albeit subject to Paris, and therefore needed to consolidate a conspicuous art collection of its own. The great new museum opened its doors to the public in 1809.
.:. The fall of Napoleon did not bring with it the return of the masterpieces to their places of origin. This was also thanks to the idea – then coming to the fore – that a museum should perform the function of a centralized collection for the benefit of the community. The Pinacoteca was officially separated from the Accademia in 1882, thus to become one of the Italian State's main art museums.
.:. The collections are particularly important in understanding the history of the visual art in northern Italy from the 14th to the 18th centuries. There are exceptional examples of Renaissance works – possibly the best being the Pala di Federico da Montefeltro by Piero della Francesca (pictured) – and famous, if not numerous, paintings by foreign Old Masters.

Via Brera 28
Lanza
Brera district

  8:30am-7:15pm, closed Mon, January 1st, May 1st, and December 25. Tickets sold till 6pm
    [+39] 02 72105 141