Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana occupies Palazzo dell’Ambrosiana in the heart of Milan, presenting art from the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. Its halls connect painting with the historic Biblioteca Ambrosiana and its manuscripts. Late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century interiors recreate a noble Milanese setting, including a faux library and stained glass showing Saint Ambrose.
Cardinal Federico Borromeo founded it in 1618 for free cultural education. Rooms one, four, five, six and seven hold sixteenth-century Leonardesque and Venetian paintings, alongside Lombard and Flemish works. Borromeo commissioned educational copies, including Andrea Bianchi’s replica of Leonardo’s Last Supper. The original was already deteriorating when that Milanese copy took shape.
Leonardo’s Portrait of a Musician, Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit and Raphael’s School of Athens cartoon anchor the paintings. The Raphael work is a preparatory drawing for a Vatican fresco. In the Room of Medusa, Giannino Castiglioni’s fountain stands among artworks and small objects from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries.
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Image: Giovanni Ambrogio de PredisPublic domain 
Image: Leonardo da VinciPublic domain 
Image: SalaìPublic domain 
Image: Domenico GhirlandaioPublic domain 
Image: G.dallortoAttribution
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