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Milan: Pinacoteca di Brera Entry Ticket
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The Pinacoteca di Brera is a veritable treasure trove of artworks housed in the eponymous palazzo in the renowned Brera district, north of Milan’s Duomo. Spanning over 24,000 square metres, the Pinacoteca boasts a total of 38 galleries and is one of Lombardy’s largest museums. Within its walls are preserved important works from the Venetian, Lombard, Tuscan and Flemish schools, as well as masterpieces of contemporary art.
The pinacoteca as it stands today is the result of Napoleon’s vision. After suppressing many churches and monasteries, he confiscated the artworks within them. Whilst numerous paintings were transferred to Paris, the remaining works were used to create galleries in Italy’s major cities. The enlightened and “revolutionary” spirit of the age was to make paintings accessible to the general public that had previously been difficult to view.
This is how the galleries in Venice, Bologna and Milan came into being. Milan’s venue, in particular, was designed to showcase not only the entire history of Italian art but also its diverse regional schools. Over time, the pinacoteca has been enriched with many valuable works thanks to donations and bequests from private collectors.
The Pinacoteca is housed in the grand Palazzo di Brera, which also contains the Braidense National Library, the Observatory, the Botanical Gardens, the Lombard Institute of Sciences and Letters, and the Academy of Fine Arts. At the centre of the complex stands a courtyard, surrounded by a portico on two levels, which features the monument to Napoleon Bonaparte as Mars the Peacemaker, created by Antonio Canova. In addition to this work, the courtyard displays statues of prominent Milanese intellectuals and figures such as Cesare Beccaria, Giuseppe Parini, Bonaventura Cavalieri and Tommaso Grossi.
Beyond these sculptures and other creations from the Jesi Donation and Vitali Bequest, the Pinacoteca holds primarily paintings. Visiting the museum’s 38 galleries allows you to follow a path beginning with Gothic painting, progressing through the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with works from Italy’s principal schools on display. Next comes the Foreign Schools section, and finally the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Your visit to the pinacoteca begins with the Gallery of Frescoes, which houses fourteenth-century works from the Oratorio di Mocchirolo, a small chapel located in the Monza Brianza province. The works have been in the Pinacoteca since 1949 and are believed to have been executed by an artist trained by Giotto (1335–1336).
Following this are four galleries tracing the evolution of Italian painting from the late thirteenth century to the mid-fifteenth. Here you’ll find paintings such as Jacopo Bellini’s Madonna and Child, Stefano da Verona’s Adoration of the Magi and numerous works by Bernardo Daddi, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Giovanni da Milano and Lorenzo Veneziano.
This is the Pinacoteca’s central section, housing the most significant works from various regions of northern and central Italy. From gallery V to XVIII you’ll find masterpieces by the great Venetian and Lombard painters between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first part is dedicated to Venetian painting, featuring works by Andrea Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, Cima da Conegliano and Vittore Carpaccio. This continues with canvases by Lorenzo Lotto and the three major figures of sixteenth-century Venetian painting: Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. From gallery X onwards you’ll find works from the Lombard school, with paintings by artists such as Vincenzo Foppa, Leonardo da Vinci and Gaudenzio Ferrari.
Next come two major fresco cycles: one by Donato Bramante and another by Bernardino Luini from the early sixteenth century. The following three galleries are devoted to the Renaissance of Ferrara, Emilia and the Marches, featuring early works by Correggio (Nativity and Adoration of the Magi) and canvases by Garofalo, Dosso Dossi, Marco Palmezzano and Ercole de’ Roberti, including the monumental Pala Portuense.
The pinacoteca’s crowning jewel is undoubtedly gallery XXIV, dedicated to three titans of Italian art: Piero della Francesca, Raphael and Bramante. Here you’ll find the Montefeltro Altarpiece (or Brera Altarpiece), Piero della Francesca’s last known work, and Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin. The section closes with Donato Bramante’s Christ at the Column, originally from Chiaravalle Abbey.
After two galleries dedicated to seventeenth-century painting in central Italy and Lombardy, and one featuring Caravaggio’s canvases, you arrive at the section dedicated to foreign schools. Brera holds a considerable number of works by foreign artists (galleries XXXII and XXXIII). Specifically, these include paintings by Pieter Paul Rubens (creator of the grand Last Supper), Antoon van Dyck (Portrait of a Lady and Madonna with Saint Anthony of Padua), as well as several fifteenth-century Flemish painters.
From gallery XXXIV to XXXVIII you’ll find the greatest masterpieces of eighteenth and nineteenth-century art, including late Baroque and Neoclassical works. Here are paintings by Giambattista Pittoni, Francesco Solimena, Luca Giordano, Pierre Subleyras and Giambattista Tiepolo.
As for nineteenth-century works, you can admire Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo’s The Great Throng and masterpieces by Francesco Hayez, who also taught drawing at the Brera Academy. In particular, you can see his renowned work “The Kiss”, one of his most celebrated paintings, and the “Portrait of Alessandro Manzoni”, also by Hayez. The exhibition concludes with the Macchiaioli painters.
The history of the Pinacoteca di Brera is intertwined with that of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, founded in 1776 at the behest of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. The Academy opened in a building that, since the sixteenth century, had successively housed an ancient convent of the Humiliati order and then the Society of Jesus. Both orders were dissolved and the Austrian Government became the building’s owner, transforming it into an Academy. Over time, prominent figures such as architect Giuseppe Piermarini, pupil of Luigi Vanvitelli, and Ticino-born decorator Giocondo Albertolli worked here. Academy masters and students also contributed to the construction of the summer residence of Archduke Ferdinand of Habsburg, the Royal Villa of Monza.
With the advent of French rule and Napoleon Bonaparte’s arrival, the complex underwent a transformation. From an Academy, the site became a proper Art Gallery displaying Italian artistic masterpieces. Most of these had been seized from churches and monasteries suppressed during that period. Although some precious canvases were transferred to Paris, many others remained in Italy and became part of the prestigious collections now housed in the pinacoteca.
To access the pinacoteca, you must purchase the BreraCARD online at a cost of €15.00 (Full Ticket) or €10.00 (Reduced).
This card is a virtual personal pass that entitles you to unlimited visits to the Pinacoteca over a three-month period.
Alternatively, you can be accompanied by an expert guide during your visit. The cost is slightly higher than the standard admission ticket, and by purchasing this tour you’ll save time by avoiding queues at the ticket office.
The Pinacoteca di Brera is open daily (except Mondays) from 9.30 to 19.15. Closed: all Mondays, 1 January, 1 May and 25 December.
The Pinacoteca di Brera is easily accessible by public transport. Specifically:
A car is not the best option for reaching the Museum, which is located in Milan’s historic centre. Those travelling by car can use the Parking Car Brera at via Brera 3/A.
The Pinacoteca di Brera is located in the heart of Milan's historic centre, in the renowned Brera neighbourhood. The gallery is easily accessible from Piazza Duomo on a pleasant walk of around 12-15 minutes.
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