t Sculpture of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker in the courtyard of the museum
The Brera holds one of Italy’s most important art collections, featuring masterpieces by leading Italian artists from the 13th to the 20th centuries, including Raphael, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca and Caravaggio. The collection is unique among the country’s major art galleries in that it isn’t founded on the riches of the church or a noble family, but on the policies of Napoleon.
The museum is housed in the imposing 17th-century Palazzo di Brera, a grand palace built as a Jesuit college and later used as an art academy. In the early 19th century, Napoleon augmented the academy’s collection with works stolen from churches across the region, opening a picture gallery here in 1809. Over the next two centuries, the collection grew to take in some of the finest examples of Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting.
Rooms 2–4 feature frescoes from the Oratory at Mocchirolo, painted by an unknown Lombard master in around 1365–70. Other highlights include Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Madonna and Child and Christ the Judge by Giovanni da Milano.
The Venetian section (rooms 5–9) features works by 15th- and 16th-century artists active in the Veneto, including Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, Carpaccio, Titian and Veronese. Mantegna’s Dead Christ (c.1480), a piece striking for its intense light and bold foreshortening, is a star attraction.
A large collection of 15th- to 16th-century Lombard paintings is exhibited in rooms 15, 18 and 19, including works by Bergognone, Luini, Bramantino and Vincenzo Foppa.
Rooms 20–23 illustrate artistic movements in the regions of Emilia and Marche. The Ferrara school is represented by leading artists Cosmè Tura, Francesco del Cossa and Ercole de’ Roberti. In Room 24 is Raphael’s altarpiece The Marriage of the Virgin (1504). Some scholars say the young man breaking the staff in the background to this painting is a self-portrait of the artist. Piero della Francesco’s Montefeltro Altarpiece (c.1475) is in the same room. The egg suspended from the shell in this striking masterpiece is a symbol of the Immaculate Conception.
Among the non-Italian artists featured in rooms 31–32 are Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, El Greco and Brueghel the Elder. In room 37 is Francesco Hayez’s The Kiss (1859), a frequently reproduced work epitomizing the optimism that prevailed after Italy’s unification.
The 72 works of modern work donated by Emilio and Maria Jesi in 1976 and 1984 are on show in room 10. The collection, mostly by Italian artists, covers the 1910–40 period.
t Sculpture of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker in the courtyard of the museum
Experience Milan
t Gallery of Renaissance paintings in the Pinacoteca di Brera
The collection is displayed in 38 rooms, and was first built up by paintings from churches, later from acquisitions. The paintings are also grouped together by schools of painting (Venetian, Tuscan, Lombard, etc). Not all the exhibits are permanently on view – this is due to restoration work and research. The Sala della Passione on the ground floor is used for temporary exhibitions.
Next to the museum, just off Piazzetta di Brera, is a pretty botanical garden, a welcome retreat after gallery gazing.