Brera

The small and elegant Brera neighbourhood is located halfway between the Quadrilatero d’Oro, famous for Milan’s reputable fashion houses, and the Sforzesco Castle. Its beautiful, cobbled streets are home to 18^th-century buildings as well as original stores selling cosmetics, handicrafts and, of course, clothes. However, unlike the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and the Via Montenapoleone, which are home to some of the largest national and international brands, Brera is renowned for its small boutiques of emerging designers. Come and take a look for yourself and purchase some garments with a personality of their own.

Personality is one of the hallmarks of Brera: a neighbourhood in which many establishments have lost their original function to accommodate cafés, galleries and concert halls. A good example of this is the Moleskine Café (Corso Garibaldi, 65), which is a hugely attractive reinvention of the traditional literary café.

The beating heart of the neighbourhood is the Pinacoteca di Brera (Via Brera, 28): a gallery that houses one of the world’s most spectacular collections of Italian paintings. Its collections include pieces by the likes of Andrea Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, Tintoretto, Caravaggio and Rafael, among other renowned Italian artists. It also displays masterpieces by renowned international artists such as Rembrandt, Rubens, El Greco and Van Dyck. All of this is housed in a beautiful building that first belonged to the “Umiliati” brotherhood and which was later inherited by the Jesuits. When visiting the Pinacoteca di Brera, find some time to appreciate the classical elegance of its cloister and take a break at the Caffè Fernanda. We promise that you’ll love it so much you’ll find it hard to leave!

Going back to the Jesuits, it was they who founded the Astronomical Observatory —also located in the Palazzo Brera— where Giovanni Schiaparelli first observed the canals of Mars back in 1877. The Botanical Garden, which Maria Theresa of Austria commissioned in 1774, is also contained within the observatory’s walls. The garden, which currently belongs to the Università degli Studi di Milano, is a gorgeous green lung in the centre of the city.

Another of Brera’s main thoroughfares is Via Fiori Chiari, where a busy craft market is held on the third Sunday of every month. The gourmet restaurant L’Osteria di Brera (Via Fiori Chiari, 8), located on the same street, is renowned for its excellent seafood dishes and carefully-chosen wine selection.

Before leaving the neighbourhood, we recommend taking the Via Madonnina and walking until the Piazza del Carmine, where you will find one of the oldest churches in Milan’s city centre. Completed in 1446, the church of Santa Maria del Carmine became the regular burial place for multiple Milanese aristocrats during the second half of the 15th century, as attested by the various tombs and chapels inside the church.