Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Museum Tour
Pinacoteca di Brera
Length
2.5 hours
Start with a blast of Renaissance brilliance in
Room I
, lined with Donato Bramante's superhero
Men at Arms
and Bernardino Luini's charming frescoes. To your left is a reconstruction of the
Oratory of Mocchirolo
,
thought to be the work of Giotto.
Whiz through rooms II-V and emerge in
Room VI
in front of Mantegna's shocking
Lamento sul Cristo
morto
(Lamentation Over the Dead Christ), where the use of rigorous perspective on the foreshortened corpse gives
you an eerie sense of standing at the foot of Christ's death bed. To the right is Bellini's sad-eyed
Madonna col
Bambino
.
From here you're vaulted into the High Renaissance in
Rooms VII-IX
, where you'll find canvases by
Venetian heavyweights Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. Room IX brings together some of their greatest works in-
cluding Titian's
St Jerome
and Veronese's
Cena in Casa di Simone
(Supper in the House of Simon).
Continue to
Room XVIII
, where you'll find museum restorers at work in a temperature-controlled room.
From here the collection journeys south to artists of the Emilia-Romagna school. Piero della Francesca's monu-
mental Montefeltro altarpiece (1472-74) is the prize of
Room XXIV
along with Raphael's
Wedding of the Vir-
gin
(1504).
From their glimmering colours you're barely prepared for the emotional thump that
Room XXIX
delivers.
It's home to the academy's only Caravaggio,
Cena in Emmaus
(Supper at Emmaus).
Breeze through Canaletto's views of Venice to
Room XXXVII
, where you'll find Francesco Hayez. Direct-
or of the academy, Hayez was
the
portrait painter for the Lombard nobility; his sitters included Teresa Manzoni and
the Conte Giovanni Battisti, both of whom are represented here. Hayez's luminous
Il Bacio
(The Kiss; 1859) is one
of the most reproduced artworks in the gallery.
TOP OF CHAPTER
1
Parco Sempione & Corso Garibaldi
Walk beneath the imposing battlements of Castello Sforzesco en route to one of its mu-
seums or Parco Sempione, and modern Milan slips away. On the southwestern edge of the
park is the imposing Design Triennale, to the northeast the emerging skyscrapers of the
Porta Nuova and buzzing Corso Como and Corso Garibaldi, which have a cruisey, southern
Californian feel in summer.
Castello Sforzesco
CASTLE, MUSEUM
