Pinacoteca di Brera

The Pinacoteca di Brera, or Brera Art Gallery, is Milan’s main public home for paintings, and it traces its roots to the cultural program of the Brera Academy, which shares the Palazzo Brera site. The palace itself takes its name from the Germanic *braida*, meaning a “grassy opening” in the city’s early structure. On this ground, a convent was passed to the Jesuits in 1572, and after the Jesuits were disbanded in 1773 the Palazzo Brera became the seat of both the astronomical Observatory and the Braidense National Library, founded by the Jesuits. In 1774, a herbarium was added to the new botanical garden. When the Academy was formally founded in 1776, the Palazzo was extended by designs by Giuseppe Piermarini, appointed professor there; Giuseppe Parini served as dean. Under the Academy’s program—accelerated during the Napoleonic era—the collection began acquiring key Italian works, with Raphael’s *Sposalizio* marking the early core.

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