Milan Attractions

Venue: Pinacoteca di Brera    When: Daily; not Mon

Milan's Pinacoteca di Brera is home to one of the finest collections of Italian Renaissance art in the world.

When Napoleon was busy running Europe, he decided that Milan was the place for an imperial capital (after Paris of course). To this end, he ordered his armies to loot the areas of French-occupied Italy and bring back to Milan the finest works of art that they could find.

From 1799-1815 Napoleon built on the original collection, which comprised the Hapsburg's bequest of a small collection of paintings and sculptures to Milan's Accademia. Paintings came flooding in thick and fast from the likes of Mantegna, Bellini, Caravaggio, Carpaccio, Veronese and Tintoretto, to name but a few.

Masterpieces to look out for include Veronese's Supper in the House of Simon, for which he was nearly killed by the Inquisition, Mantegna's The Dead Christ, which depicts a prostrate Christ viewed from the soles of his feet, and Gentile Bellini's St Mark Preaching in St Euphemia Square (can you spot the giraffe?). There are also two Carpaccio pictures, The Presentation of the Virgin and The Disputation of St Stephen, which should not be missed.

As for non-Italians, there are pictures by El Greco (St Francis), van Dyck (Portrait of Amelia Solms), Rubens (Last Supper) and Rembrandt (Portrait of Artist's Sister). Modern Italian painters include Modigliani.