Pinacoteca di Brera

The Pinacoteca di Brera’s eight masterpieces, Mantegna to Caravaggio

The Pinacoteca di Brera picks out eight of its paintings as masterpieces, and Francesco Hayez’s The Kiss, from 1859, is the newest of them.

Two of the eight show the dead Christ: Giovanni Bellini’s Pietà, from around 1460, and Andrea Mantegna’s Dead Christ and Three Mourners. Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin was among the first paintings to enter the gallery. Piero della Francesca’s altarpiece sets the Madonna and Child among saints and angels, with Federico da Montefeltro in the group.

Two more tell the story of St Mark, one by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini and one by Tintoretto, and the eighth is Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus. The gallery holds more besides, among them works by Titian, Rubens and Van Dyck.

Pinacoteca di Brera tickets: always booked, and a guided walk

Every visit to Brera has a booked day and time, so it isn’t a museum you can walk up to on a whim. On the first Sunday of every month entry is free, but you still book a time like any other day.

Our tour, at €64.90, is two hours in a small group, with the entry included and a headset to hear the guide. The tour starts outside, in the streets of the Brera district. It follows Via dei Fiori Chiari and Via dei Fiori Oscuri, past artisans’ workshops and perfumeries, while the guide explains how the streets got their names, and then goes into the gallery for Raphael, Caravaggio and Hayez.

Children from 4 to 12 pay €39.90, under-4s go free, and the tour is wheelchair accessible. You meet the group 15 minutes before the start, and cancelling is possible up to 24 hours ahead.

Brera isn’t on the YesMilano City Pass, or on any of the other Milan passes we sell.

Palazzo Citterio, the MusAB and the exhibitions on now

Palazzo Citterio, at Via Brera 14, opened on 8 December 2024 as the modern and contemporary art wing of the Grande Brera, the complex that brings it together with the Pinacoteca and the Braidense National Library.

The Palazzo di Brera itself also holds the MusAB, the Brera astronomical museum, which takes a separate booking of its own.

How Brera’s Jesuit college became a picture gallery

The Palazzo di Brera was a Jesuit college from 1572. When the order was dissolved in 1773, the palace took in the observatory and the Braidense Library, and the Accademia di Brera, the academy of fine arts, was founded there in 1776.

The Reale Pinacoteca, the royal picture gallery, opened on 15 August 1809. It became independent of the academy in 1882, 19 new rooms opened in 1903, and since December 2024 the same museum has also run the Last Supper.

Finding the Pinacoteca di Brera on Via Brera

The entrance is at Via Brera 28, and the step-free entrance, with a lift, is at Via Fiori Oscuri 2. Three metro stops serve it: Lanza on the M2, Montenapoleone on the M3 and Cairoli on the M1. Trams 1, 2, 12 and 14 stop on Via Cusani and tram 4 at Lanza, and buses 57 and 61 run there too.

The ticket office lends two electric wheelchairs, and the museum has tactile reproductions and a guide in Italian Sign Language.