Brera Art Gallery Tickets & Tours

The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings, an outgrowth of the cultural program of the Brera Academy, which shares the site in the Palazzo Brera.

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The Brera Gallery was officially established in 1809, even though a first heterogeneous collection with educational purpose existed already from 1776 – and then increased in the following years – alongside the Accademia di Belle Arti, requested by Mary Therese of Austria to offer the students the opportunity to study lofty masterpieces of art close up.

Brera become a museum to host the most important works of art from all of the areas conquered by the French armies. So unlike other important museums in Italy such as the Uffizi, Brera did not start out life as the private collection of a prince or nobleman but as the product of a deliberate policy decision.

The artworks are displayed chronologically across six centuries. Expect to see mostly Italian painters, especially those from Lombardy and the Veneto region, though under Napoleon’s rule there was an exchange with the Louvre in Paris that brought some Flemish paintings to Brera, including works by Rubens and Van Dyck.

Must-see masterpieces include the “Discovery of the Body of St. Mark” by Tintoretto, Caravaggio’s “Supper at Emmaus”, ‘Virgin and Saints’ by Piero della Francesca and the “Marriage of the Virgin” by Raphael, who used an entirely new perspective at the time it was painted. Another important piece is the incredibly sexy Il Bacio, or The Kiss, by Francesco Hayez. It depicts a couple in a passionate kiss. Though it’s actually rather political, supposedly portraying the patriotic spirit of Italy’s unification and freedom from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it’s still considered one of the most romantic paintings in Italian history.

Be sure to also see the incredible “Lamentation Of Christ” by Andrea Mantegna, a Renaissance painter native to Lombardia. The painting shows a realistic and tragic theme enhanced by Mantegna’s mastery of perspective: The painting shows a foreshortened figure of Christ from the viewpoint of his feet.