PINACOTECA DI BRERA

A museum of international stature, the “Pinacoteca of Brera” was born beside the academy of Belle Arti with didactic finality in 1776, as desired by Maria Teresa of Austria. Indeed, it was intended to constitute a collection of exemplary works, to contribute to the formation of the students. When Milan became the capital of the Italian Kingdom, Napoleon’s wish was to transform it into a museum that intended to exhibit the most meaningful paintings from all the territories conquered by the French armies. The collections of the Pinacoteca of Brera were born from the concentration of the confiscated paintings following the suppressions of churches and convents effected first during the Teresian period, and then during the Napoleonic. Like the Galleries in Venice and Bologna, the Pinacoteca of Brera also had precise didactic finalities which placed it side by side to the academy of Belle Arti, founded by Maria Teresa of Austria in the 1776.