Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

The history of the museum begins with Cardinal Federico Borromeo (1564–1631), Archbishop of Milan, who in 1618 transferred his private collection of more than 250 paintings, sculptures and drawings by famous Lombardian, Roman and Venetian artists to the Ambrosian Library ^[1] . In accordance with the wishes of the cardinal, the collection was supposed to serve as an artistic training for young artists in the art school “Accademia Ambrosiana”, which he opened three years later.

The first director of the Academy and its art collection was the artist, sculptor and architect Giovanni Battista Crespi (known as Il Cerano, 1573-1632), whose students were Daniele Crespi (1597-1630), Giulio Cesare Proccaccini (1574-1625), Pierre Francesco Mazzutselli (known as Il Morazzone; 1573-1626) and Carlo Francesco Nuvolone (1609-1662).

Today, the museum’s collection is exhibited in 24 rooms and includes works by masters from the 14th to the beginning of the 20th century. Five halls contain works from the collection of Cardinal Borromeo.

The rest of the collection also consists mainly of gifts from private collectors; here is the only surviving cardboard for Rafael's Athenian School , gypsum casts of Laocoon and Pieta by Michelangelo from the collection of sculptor Leone Leoni (1509-1590), as well as paintings by Sandro Botticelli , Bramantino , Francesco Ajec , Giandomenico Tiepolo and Titian .

The most popular pinakothek paintings are “ Portrait of a Musician ” by Leonardo da Vinci and “ Fruit Basket ” by Caravaggio .

From a historical point of view, a collection of working copies of famous paintings donated by Federico Borromeo for educational purposes is interesting, for example, a scroll with a copy of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci ^[2] . The original of this work is the world-famous fresco of 1498 in the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan from the beginning of the 17th century was in poor condition.