Description
Brera is Milan's artists' quarter, a short walk from the Duomo and La Scala: narrow lanes, antique dealers, galleries, historic cafés and workshops, around the Pinacoteca and the Academy of Fine Arts. It is one of the most characteristic areas of the city, ideal for wandering on foot without hurry.
The name is anything but chic: it comes from "braida", uncultivated land, a vegetable plot on the edge of the city. Here stood the convent of the Umiliati, and from that field the palace, the Braidense library and then the whole neighborhood took their name.
The heart is the Palazzo di Brera, on Via Brera, home to the Pinacoteca, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Braidense National Library, the Astronomical Observatory and the Botanical Garden. In the courtyard of honor, surrounded by arcades, stands the bronze of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker, by Canova.
The palace was first a convent of the Umiliati, then of the Jesuits; since 1773 it has belonged to the Austrian state, which gave it over to cultural institutions.
Around it, the neighborhood becomes a tangle of streets: Via Fiori Chiari and Via Fiori Oscuri, Via Madonnina, Via del Carmine, Via Ciovasso. They are all small streets, to be walked slowly. On Via Brera there is also the Galleria d'arte moderna Il Castello.
It was the artists who changed things. From the 19th century they revolved around the Academy, and turned Brera into one of the most characteristic corners of Milan. In the 1950s and 1960s writers and intellectuals gathered at the Bar Giamaica, on Via Brera, open since 1911.
Luciano Bianciardi described the neighborhood life of those years in the first chapters of "La vita agra". Once the bohemian era was over, Brera became a byword for refined style.
Don't miss the little streets like Via Fiori Chiari and Via Fiori Oscuri, the antique dealers and the flea market that enlivens Via Fiori Chiari one Sunday a month. The main way into the area from outside the city used to be the Pusterla Beatrice, at the end of today's Via Brera.
The name is anything but chic: it comes from "braida", uncultivated land, a vegetable plot on the edge of the city. Here stood the convent of the Umiliati, and from that field the palace, the Braidense library and then the whole neighborhood took their name.
The heart is the Palazzo di Brera, on Via Brera, home to the Pinacoteca, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Braidense National Library, the Astronomical Observatory and the Botanical Garden. In the courtyard of honor, surrounded by arcades, stands the bronze of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker, by Canova.
The palace was first a convent of the Umiliati, then of the Jesuits; since 1773 it has belonged to the Austrian state, which gave it over to cultural institutions.
Around it, the neighborhood becomes a tangle of streets: Via Fiori Chiari and Via Fiori Oscuri, Via Madonnina, Via del Carmine, Via Ciovasso. They are all small streets, to be walked slowly. On Via Brera there is also the Galleria d'arte moderna Il Castello.
It was the artists who changed things. From the 19th century they revolved around the Academy, and turned Brera into one of the most characteristic corners of Milan. In the 1950s and 1960s writers and intellectuals gathered at the Bar Giamaica, on Via Brera, open since 1911.
Luciano Bianciardi described the neighborhood life of those years in the first chapters of "La vita agra". Once the bohemian era was over, Brera became a byword for refined style.
Don't miss the little streets like Via Fiori Chiari and Via Fiori Oscuri, the antique dealers and the flea market that enlivens Via Fiori Chiari one Sunday a month. The main way into the area from outside the city used to be the Pusterla Beatrice, at the end of today's Via Brera.