Description of the attraction
The Pinacoteca Brera is Milan's premier art gallery with one of the most valuable collections of Italian paintings. The Brera Academy is located in the same building.
Palazzo Brera got its name from the German "braida" - an area overgrown with grass in the city (by analogy with the Verona Bra). There was once a monastery on this site, which at the end of the 16th century passed into the possession of the Jesuit order. In 1627-28, the building was radically rebuilt by the architect Francesco Maria Rikini. When the Jesuit Order was disbanded in 1773, the Palazzo remained an astronomical observatory and a library founded by monks. A year later, a herbarium was added here for a new botanical garden.
In 1776, when the Academy of Brera was officially founded, the buildings of the former convent were enlarged by the design of Giuseppe Piermarini, who was appointed professor of the academy. Piermarini taught here for 20 years and simultaneously worked on many urban projects such as public gardens and Piazza Fontana.
To better teach architecture, sculpture and other subjects, the Academy purchased a collection of samples of ancient art, which was extremely important for the study of the foundations of neoclassicism. And in the late 18th - early 19th centuries, the collection of the Academy was replenished with the first paintings by Italian artists. Today you can see the works of such masters as Raphael, David, Pietro Bienvenuti, Vincenzo Camuccini, Canova, Thorvaldsen and others. In 1805, at the initiative of the then director of the Academy, a number of exhibitions were held by analogy with the Paris Salons - the purpose of these exhibitions was to position Milan as the cultural capital of modern painting in the 19th century. In 1882, the art gallery was separated from the Academy. Behind the Pinacoteca, you can still see the Brera Botanical Gardens.
