Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

Leonardo, Caravaggio and Raphael at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

At the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana you get Leonardo twice, in the gallery and in the library’s reading room, and the crypt under the street comes with the same ticket.

The Ambrosiana’s own list of highlights names Leonardo’s Portrait of a Musician. It also names Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit and Raphael’s cartoon for the School of Athens, the drawing he made to prepare the painting. A Portrait of a Lady by Giovanni Ambrogio De Predis and a Death of the Virgin by the Ferrarese school, the painters of Ferrara, are on it too.

The list goes on with Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Vase of Flowers with a Jewel, Coins and Shells and works by Titian, Botticelli and Bramantino. Until 12 January 2027 the gallery also shows Il segno di San Francesco, an exhibition of images of the life of St Francis.

Leonardo’s Codex Atlanticus in the Sala Federiciana

The Sala Federiciana is the reading room of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the library Cardinal Federico Borromeo founded. Building began in 1603, the room opened to the public on 8 December 1609, and from 1611 a second building went up for the paintings. Today the room shows original sheets of Leonardo’s Codex Atlanticus, a selection that changes, so you see a few pages, never the whole codex.

The codex is a compilation: the sculptor Pompeo Leoni gathered 1,119 of Leonardo’s sheets into 12 volumes at the end of the 16th century, and the library acquired it in 1637 from the marquis Galeazzo Arconati, with eleven other Leonardo manuscripts. Atlanticus refers to the large size of the paper, not to the ocean. Napoleon took it to Paris in 1796, and it came back to Milan after the Napoleonic wars.

Down into the Crypt of San Sepolcro

The Crypt of San Sepolcro lies under the street and spreads over five aisles, and its floor is the stone paving of the forum of Mediolanum, Roman Milan.

Down there you’ll find a fragment of a fresco by Bernardino Luini, from 1519, and a medieval starry sky that has been restored.

The church of San Sepolcro above it was founded in 1030 and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. In 1100, after the capture of Jerusalem, Archbishop Anselm IV rededicated it to the Holy Sepulchre, and Carlo Borromeo later called it the umbilicus civitatis, the navel of the city. Its neo-Romanesque façade dates from 1894–97.

Pinacoteca Ambrosiana tickets, and the Wednesday closing

A ticket for the Pinacoteca and the crypt is €21.50 for adults, on the date you choose. Visitors aged 15 to 18 and over 65 pay €16.50, children from 6 to 14 pay €6.50 and under-6s go free, and you can cancel any time before your date.

There’s no guide or audio guide with it. If you’d like one, the museum has an audio guide that plays on your phone in six languages, English among them.

The Ambrosiana opens every day except Wednesday, and the museum lists the crypt with the same hours as the gallery.

The gallery and the crypt take about two hours between them, so aim to arrive by 16:00 if you want to see both without rushing.

The Ambrosiana as a YesMilano premium pick

On the YesMilano City Pass the Ambrosiana is one of the 14 premium activities. The Standard lets you book one of them in the app, the All-Inclusive all 14. If a Wednesday falls within your three days, book the Ambrosiana for another day.

How The Milan Pass compares with the two YesMilano passes, and what else each covers, is set out in Milan Pass and Milan’s city passes.

Where to find the Ambrosiana, and the stops for it

The Ambrosiana is at Piazza Pio XI 2. Its metro stops are Cordusio on the M1 and Duomo on the M1 and M3, and trams 12, 14 and 16 stop at Orefici/Cantù, with trams 2 and 3 at Duomo.