DK Travel : Milan and the Lakes : Pinacoteca di Brera

Pinacoteca di Brera

No one has rated this yet.

Rate it

Review this attraction

Are these details incorrect?

Milan’s Brera is unique among Italy’s major art galleries in that it isn’t founded on the riches of the church or a noble family, but the policies of Napoleon, who suppressed churches across the region and took their riches off to galleries and academies. Over the next two centuries, the collections grew to take in some of the best Renaissance-era painting from northern Italy, representatives of the Venetian school and several giants of central Italy, including Raphael and Piero della Francesca.

Top 10 Works of Art

1. Umberto Boccioni’s Riot in the Galleria

In this work of 1911, the Milanese are dashing for the doors of Caffè Zucca (see Zucca (Caffè Miani), Milan). A companion, The City Rises , is also here.
2. Gentile Fabriano’s Valle Romita Polyptych

The Brera worked hard to reconstitute this altarpiece of 1410. The five main panels came with Napoleon; the other four were tracked down and purchased later.
3. Mantegna’s Dead Christ

Mantegna was one of the Renaissance’s greatest perspective virtuosos, and this is his foreshortened masterpiece, painted in about 1500.
4. Giovanni Bellini’s Virgin and Child

The Brera houses several masterpieces by the early Venetian Renaissance master Bellini, including two very different versions of Virgin and Child . One is almost a Flemish-style portrait, painted when Bellini was 40. The other is a luminous scene of colour and light, painted 40 years later.
5. Tintoretto’s Finding the Body of St Mark

Tintoretto uses his mastery of drama and light in this work of the 1560s to highlight the finding of the body of St Mark by Venetian merchants in the Crusades.
6. Piero della Francesca’s Montefeltro Altarpiece

This 1472 scene shows Piero’s patron the Duke of Montefeltro kneeling before the Virgin and Child. Just months earlier, the Duke’s beloved wife had given birth to a male heir who tragically died within weeks.
7. Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin

In this early work depicting the Virgin Mary’s terrestrial marriage to Joseph, Raphael took the idea and basic layout from his Umbrian master Perugino, tweaking it with a perfected single-point perspective.
8. Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus

This 1605 work was Caravaggio’s second painting of the Supper. The deep black shadows and bright highlights create mood and tension.
9. Canaletto’s Bacino di San Marco

The undisputed master of 18th-century Venetian cityscapes did at least seven versions of this scene of St Mark’s bell tower and the Doge’s Palace.
10. Francesco Hayez’s The Kiss

This passionate 1859 scene – painted when Hayez was 68 – was intended as an allegory of the struggle for independence and the importance of family.

Practical Information

Make sense of the works on display with the excellent audio guides. Cheap guided tours for any number of people are available weekdays, but must be booked 2–3 days in advance. The bars of the Brera district (see Bar Jamaica) make for great snacking or a post-gallery apéritif. Via Brera 28, Milan 02-722-631 www.brera.beniculturali.it 8:30am–7:15pm Tue– Sun Adm €5; free for EU citizens under 18 or over 65 Cumulative ticket (available at Cenacolo):Pinacoteca di Brera, Cenacolo and Museo Teatrale alla Scala: €10