Best of the Brera Museum in Milan by FT art critic Jackie Urshrager

This article is part of the Milan guide to FT Globetrotter

Located in the Neoclassical Brera Palace and around a beautiful double-pole courtyard (home to sculptures and charming cafes), Pinacote Cadi Brera opened on August 15th in 1809 for her birthday. Francesca’s “Madonna and the Child” – during the Emperor’s religious oppression.

A wonderful, airy gallery, including the monumental altarpiece of Napoleon Hall, is laid out more or less chronologically, and invites detailed exploration of the schools of Lombard and Venice, especially during this period. The Renaissance remains the museum’s biggest strength, but the modern work (late 20th to mid-20th centuries) on the adjacent extension, donated by Emilo and Maria Jessi, is also fascinating as an expansion of the “Grand De Brera” complex, a neighboring extension. Throughout, the Brera is elegant, ample, full of surprises and rarely crowded. It is an oasis of enthusiastic Milan’s meditative joy.

1. By Carlo Crivelli

In the gallery of sparkling golden altarpieces, Clyberg’s “Madonna and the Child” adjacent to a life-size saint pops out like modern mixed media interlopers. On the left, St. Peter dominates, his huge hanging keys of Gesso and metal appliques thrust wonderfully into our space. On the right side, Peter’s martian stands firmly despite the dagger stabbing into his chest and the sword cutting through his skull. A handsome secular youth, Camerino’s patron saint, St. Venantius, whose hair is shaking in Sforza fashion, holds an exquisite model of the town of Apennin. Room XXII

2. “Lamentation of the Dead Christ” (c1483) by Andrea Mantegna

The expressive power of Christ’s highly predicted body is so intense that this painting cannot share walls with others. It hangs alone on a panel in the center of the room. You will soon become intimate and estranged. Seriousness, the assertion of death’s absoluteness and loneliness, cold death with hard flesh on a marble slab does not offer the suggestion of red that shocked the 15th century, and is now unforgettable. Room VI

3. The Gentiles and Giovanni Berlini by “The St. Mark Sermon in Alexandria” (1504-7)

When his brother Gentile died, Belinis was nearly 80 years old, imperfectly left his enormous (7.7 meters wide) luxurious luxury depicted by the patron saint of Venice, veiled Muslims, Venetians, camels and giraffes, surrounded by turbans, and his enormous (7.7 meters wide) luxurious luxury. His will demand that the passive Giovanni finish the canvas. The Gentiles, along with the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice, have devised a wonderful stage-like structure that converges obelisks, minarets and eastern buildings. Giovanni is believed to have brought animation and interest to the numbers. Room VIII

4. “The Discovery of St. Mark’s Body” (1562-6) by Tintoret

A monumental and mystical painting of Tintoretto set in a cemetery – an arcade covered in a dizzying cemetery, with darkness gleaming by an unnatural flash of light grabs your eyes and never rests. The collapse of time and space: At the same time, illuminates Mark’s corpse, ghostly pale body (followed after Mantegna’s invention), and his desire for a sacred, holy, living living thing. The body falls from the grave, and the Renaissance harmony succumbs to the exhilarating maniacist chaos, so the figure twists, falls, and runs away. Room IX

5. “Portrait of Antonio Nabaguero” (1565) by giovanni battista moroni

Famous for portraying fascinating and charming young people, Moroni portrays the middle-aged Nabaguero, the mayor of Bergamo. It’s an unofficial power portrait. Nabaguero is caught on the way with a grooved and melancholy trait, and secretly heads towards us with a warm, sharp gaze. In Remote Bergamo, Moroni evolved his important naturalism and painted directly from his life. Room xix

6. “Emouth’s Dinner” (1606) Caravaggio

Comparing this piece with the 1601 version at the National Gallery in London in the same scene is like watching autumn at night. Even the surprises of the disciples, everything was muted, the colour was gloomy, and the east feast of life was reduced. Rather than triumph, like in London’s paintings, Christ appears to be disappearing from human vision and certainty and disappearing into the shadows. Caravaggio drew this while running for murder as his work became dark and psychologically deeper. Room XXVIII (currently available for rent at the Caravaggio 2025 exhibition at Palazzo Barberini, Rome)

7. “The Madonna of Carmel” (1745) by Giambattista Tiepolo

Like this 6.5 metre rococo canvas, vibrant colors, dynamic overlap figures, theatrical gestures, and a flood of light with pictorial sensuality, the sparkle of the typolo explodes here. The work has a history of storms. Made for the Carmelite Church in Venice, stolen, taken to France, cut by two, and reassembled when his benefactor purchased both parts for Brera. Several repairs have been made. These are done in the Brera behind the glass in situ in the gallery, so visitors can see the progress. Room xxxiv

8.

Celty was called “pitocquet” (small bee food) for his sympathetic realistic farmers and poor people. As with extreme care, his still life is his still life. It rivals Chardine for its sensitive yet spare depiction, play of light and color. Here, the semi-transparent effect of glass in contrast to fleshed red shells – and poetic renderings of everyday life. Room xxxvi

9. ‘San Moisè’ (1930) by Filippo de Pisis (Palazzo citterio)

Depisis loved the “stone comfort” of Venice. “Heavy lashes on the marble windows, the pillars and the laughter of the alleys.” Unsettled, his Venetian façades with broken brush strokes and silver tones, the teem and movement of the Church of Saint Moise, his fleeting figure and stones living like a pecking dove. Palazzo Siciterio has more than dozens of airy, hot paintings of Depisis. Palazzo Citterio, Room 41a

10. ‘Miracle (Gothic Cathedral)’ (1943) Marino Marini (Palazzo citterio)

Marini has been a great presence at Brera from the moment he defeated his anti-hero, “Horse and Rider,” and welcomed you at the entrance to the loggia (which will be moved to Palazzo Siciterio this year), and taught sculptures at the Academia Dibrella (in the museum) until the bomb was destroyed until the bomb was destroyed in 1942. “Miracle (Gothic Cathedral)” is one of the experimental polychrome plaster sculptures he created there – scores, scratches, scarring surfaces. Witnesses to wartime suffering, expressing vulnerability and anxiety, but human dignity, they were influenced by the fragmented abstractions of Etruscan archaic grandeur, classicism, and cubism. This stoic person shares the pity and solemnity of Tizian, Tintoretto and Verones in the old parts of Brera. Marini wanted “a new renaissance of Italian sculpture, a new humanist, a new reality.” Palazzo citterio, room 42

Been to Pinacoteca di Brera or Palazzo Citterio? Please let me know in the comments below. Follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @ftglobetrotter

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