Pinacoteca Ambrosiana – Ambrosian Picture Gallery
The Picture Gallery – (opened in 1618. – Milan’s very first museum, in the archbishop’s palace, with a charming patio decorated with sculptures from various eras).
The museum houses masterpieces such as:
Caravaggio’s “Basket” (one of the first still-life paintings in Italian painting)
Botticelli’s “Madonna in the Pavilion”
“Male Portrait” – a painting by Titian
The School of Athens – Raphael’s unique cartouche for his famous Vatican fresco
A total novelty is the “Leonardo Room” – Here the most interesting works of the pupils of Leonardo’s vast Milanese school are on display, as well as the only painting of the great master left in Milan (“Portrait of a Musician”).
But perhaps the most exciting part of this section of the exhibition are Leonardo’s original manuscripts, which make up the famous Atlantic Codex.
These yellowed sheets contain drawings and writings on a wide range of subjects: mechanics, mathematics, physics, botany, medicine and military science.
The museum also houses non-artistic but very interesting exhibits: an authentic golden lock of Lucrezia Borgia, the most famous lady of the Renaissance, as well as Napoleon’s gloves, which he wore during the decisive battle of Waterloo, and a dagger, the victim of which was the Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Sforza.
The Gallery also houses a collection of paintings and sculptures by Cardinal Federico Borromeo.
