Universally recognized as one of the most prestigious art collections in the world, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana is a museum located inside the Palazzo dell’Ambrosiana.
It includes masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Raphael, Bramantino, Luini, Titian, Daniele Crespi, Andrea Appiani, Francesco Hayez and the famous Canestra by Caravaggio.
A unique opportunity to admire The cartoon of Raphael’s School of Athens, returned to shine after a restoration that lasted almost five years, which shows the general public the quality and artistic greatness of the only surviving Renaissance cartoon to the present day in its entirety.
You can admire some of the most extraordinary masterpieces of all time, such as Leonardo’s Musician, Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit, Raphael’s preparatory cartoon for the School of Athens, Titian’s Adoration of the Magi, the Madonna of Botticelli’s Pavilion and the splendid Flower Vases by Jan Brueghel.
Inside there are more than 1,500 works in wood, canvas and copper.
The collection includes 248 drawings by various masters including Raphael, of whom the large fresco of the School of Athens is preserved, the largest existing image of the Rina strong>
In addition to works from the Renaissance era, the museum includes among its collections important authors from the seventeenth century Lombardy (Morazzone, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Daniele Crespi and Carlo Francesco Nuvolone), from the eighteenth century (Giandomenico Tiepolo, Fra Galgario, Francesco Londonio), and a notable nucleus of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century authors (Andrea Appiani, Francesco Hayez, Moses Bianchi, Emilio Longoni…).
Walking between one room and anotheryou can also discover some real curiosities, such as the Gloves worn by Napoleon at Waterloo, the Astrolabes and the Armillary Spheres of the Settala collection, or the display case containing a lock of Lucrezia Borgia’s hair, before which illustrious poets such as Gabriele D’Annunzio and Lord Byron.
CRYPT OF SAN SEPOLCRO
A place of profound sacredness, the crypt was chosen by Saint Charles Borromeo as a personal place of prayer, where he went every Wednesday and Friday afternoon. It was not uncommon to see him spend entire nights in what he himself defined as “the gym of the Holy Spirit”, adoring the simulacrum of Christ’s tomb.
For this reason, after his canonization, a polychrome terracotta statue was placed depicting the saint kneeling in front of the sarcophagus. The crypt also allows visitors to come into contact with one of the oldest testimonies of the city’s history.
The flooring, made up of large slabs of white ‘Verona’ stone, in fact comes from the paving of the ancient Roman forum from the 4th century, the main square of the Roman civitas, where the major civil and religious activities took place.
The Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana is one of the most important and beautiful ancient libraries in Milan and is part of the complex which also includes the Art Gallery and the Academy.
The first public museum in the city, founded by Cardinal Federico Borromeo with the aim of educating new generations of artists and beyond.
The museum complex and the Borromeo palace are a legacy of the house of the same name (“for a universal service”).
Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana
Piazza Pio XI, 2
Milan
Lombardy – Italy
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