Pinacoteca di Brera

The Pinacoteca di Brera is an art collection in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings, an outgrowth of the cultural program of the Brera Academy, which shares the site in the Palazzo Brera. The Palazzo Brera owes its name to the Germanic braida, indicating a grassy opening in the city structure: compare the Bra of Verona. The convent on the site passed to the Jesuits , then underwent a radical rebuilding by Francesco Maria Richini . When the Jesuits were disbanded in 1773, the palazzo remained the seat of the astronomical Observatory and the library... founded by the Jesuits. In 1774 were added the herbarium of the new botanical garden. The buildings were extended to designs by Giuseppe Piermarini, who was appointed professor in the Academy when it was formally founded in 1776, with Giuseppe Parini as dean. Piermarini taught at the Academy for 20 years, while he was controller of the city's urbanistic projects, like the public gardens and piazza Fontana, .
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