The tour focuses on the masterpieces of the Ambrosiana, beginning with the thought and life of its founder, Federico Borromeo. The Library and Art Gallery are his creations; while still alive, the Cardinal created one of the richest book and art collections of the 17th century. Inside the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the first art museum open to the public in Milan, in addition to precious Flemish and Lombard-Venetian Renaissance paintings, major works are on display, such as Raphael’s magnificent Preparatory Cartoon for The School of Athens, Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit, and the Portrait of a Musician and the Codex Atlanticus by Leonardo da Vinci.

Among the paintings collected by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, marvelous still lifes stand out, where flowers and fruit are depicted so realistically, that we feel like we can touch them! We wander through the rooms of the art gallery, discovering small and large fragments of reality painted by famous masters and carefully analyzing their qualities: what sensations do they convey to us? Can we imagine the texture of those painted objects?
In the workshop, inspired by what we’ve seen, we explore the textures of different materials and attempt to recreate a tactile version of Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit to “look at” with our fingertips.

It is the largest surviving Renaissance cartoon, strongly desired by Cardinal Borromeo for his art collection to serve as a model for the students of the Accademia Ambrosiana… but what is a cartoon, what purpose does it serve? What is the history of this precious work? To find out, let’s dive into the most famous Roman workshop of the early sixteenth century, that of Raphael: we’ll explore how the master organized his work and that of his assistants, what materials they had at their disposal to create works that will endure the centuries, and we’ll experiment with the spolvero technique.

Since its founding, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana has collected priceless treasures, that the Founder, Federico Borromeo, wanted to be accessible to anyone who could read and write. Starting with images of ancient texts preserved here, we trace the history of books, from their origins to the present day. We discover how this medium has changed over the centuries—in form, materials, and distribution—by discussing papyrus and digital books. In the workshop, we then dedicate ourselves to creating a small, personal book of images and words to commemorate our experience.

The guided tour traces fifteenth-century art through the halls of the Pinacoteca, revealing the profound cultural, social, and historical changes that gave rise to the Renaissance. It begins with the exquisite works of Bernardino Luini, and continues with the monumentality of Bergognone and Bramantino, Botticelli’s celebrated Madonna of the Pavilion, and Zenale’s panels. The tour culminates, of course, with the large Preparatory Cartoon for Raphael’s School of Athens, from the early sixteenth century, a work that stands as a sort of “manifesto” of Renaissance thought.

A portrait allows us to discover a great deal about a person. Through the eyes, facial expression, clothing, and gestures, we can try to reconstruct the subject’s world and thoughts. Leonardo knew this well, and in The Musician, he captures the painting’s protagonist’s emotional states. Let’s carefully examine the most beautiful portraits on display in the Pinacoteca’s collections and try to imagine the stories of those whose identities we don’t know. The Musician, in dialogue with other portrayed faces, tells us about the fundamental role given to the representation of emotions.

Artists have always engaged with the world around them, seeking to understand and represent it. This tour leads students to discover works that place great importance on the representation of reality. “Reality” can be understood in many ways: the ability to pictorially express emotions and moods, a fundamental element for Leonardo and his followers, as well as the attention to the representation of the smallest details, evident in the still lifes and landscapes painted by the Flemish painters. If the paintings of Induno and Migliara and the portraits of Hayez and Appiani seem to recall the approaches of modern photography, the Basket of Fruit illustrates in detail the innovations of Caravaggio’s painting, not only his mastery of realistic detail but also his ability to create, through the still life genre, an extraordinary allegory of human existence.

The goal is to explore Leonardo’s genius through a literary journey, guided by the many scholars who have studied the Tuscan artist over the centuries.
“And the fame of his name spread so widely that not only was it held in high esteem in his own time, but it reached even greater prominence among posterity after his death” (Vasari). Reading passages and quotations makes the guided tour highly engaging, specifically dedicated to the Codex Atlanticus, the Musician, and the works of leonardesque painters. Furthermore, thanks to passages drawn primarily from the Codex Atlanticus, Leonardo himself often recounts his ideas and theories on painting, war machines, and flight. This way, it is possible not only to illustrate the Codex’s extraordinary insights and gain a firsthand understanding of Leonardo’s modernity as a painter, but also to recount the history of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana: the tour begins in the Sala Federiciana, and through the reading of texts, participants are taken on a journey of words and images.

But what’s a giant toad doing in a painting? In one, there’s a lion that looks like a kitten, and if you look closely, another even features a mouse! In a playful journey, we hunt for these natural details, so abundant in the history of art. We uncover strange animals, flowers, and fruits, extraordinarily painted by the great artists of the past. We uncover their secrets and symbolism, including Caravaggio’s famous “Basket of Fruit.”

An immense drawing, an extraordinary artist of the Italian Renaissance, but what is a preparatory cartoon? And how is a fresco created? Together we will discover the secrets of this ancient technique and the tricks that led Raphael to create one of his most important masterpieces, part of a major project carried out for the Pope himself.

Does he wear glasses? Does he wear a hat? Does he have a mustache? Inspired by one of the most popular games, through a series of questions we discover the many characters who, through their portraits, inhabit the halls of the Pinacoteca. We tell their stories and those of their painters, and we journey through one of the most beloved genres, one that has transformed over time, culminating in the unique realism of Leonardo da Vinci and his “Musician.”

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Guided by Federico Borromeo, founder of the Biblioteca and Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, we walk through the halls of his museum and admire the masterpieces he collected. Like a journey through time, we travel back to the distant 17th century, retracing the centuries to finally arrive… all the way back to 89 BC! The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana was built on the ruins of the Mediolanum forum. So, like little travelers back in time, we visit the crypt of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and walk the ancient stones of the Roman city’s most important square: even Leonardo da Vinci knew it well!

Middle and High School
The ancient building of the Ambrosiana Library and Art Gallery stands on the ruins of Milan’s millennia-old forum, right next to an equally millennia-old church, dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. Indeed, the crypt of this sacred building is also founded on the stones of Mediolanum’s main square, a place often depicted by a keen observer like Leonardo da Vinci.
Through the words of the Ambrosiana’s founder, Federico Borromeo, we discover the masterpieces of his Musaeum (the first art museum open to the public in Milan!), from Leonardo to Raphael to Caravaggio, and we complete the journey back in time by descending into the quiet crypt of the Holy Sepulchre: it will be an opportunity to walk on the same stones trodden by the inhabitants of Mediolanum and gain a concrete understanding of the historical stratification of our city.

The tour focuses on the masterpieces of the Ambrosiana, beginning with the thought and life of its founder, Federico Borromeo. The Library and Art Gallery are his creations; while still alive, the Cardinal created one of the richest book and art collections of the 17th century. Inside the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the first art museum open to the public in Milan, in addition to precious Flemish and Lombard-Venetian Renaissance paintings, major works are on display, such as Raphael’s magnificent Preparatory Cartoon for The School of Athens, Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit, and the Portrait of a Musician and the Codex Atlanticus by Leonardo da Vinci.

Among the masterpieces housed in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Preparatory Cartoon for the fresco of the School of Athens, commissioned by Pope Julius II, stands out for its exceptional quality. It is the largest surviving Cartoon, a fragile yet timeless work that, after a long and meticulous restoration, has been enhanced by a new, poetic display. The Cartoon Room is therefore the culmination of a journey that, beginning with other extraordinary masterpieces painted by the great masters of 15th- and 16th-century art, including Bergognone, Botticelli, Bramantino, and Luini, will conclude with the finest of them all, Raphael, since, in the words of Cardinal Federico Borromeo, he was the artist closest to Greek perfection.

One of the most fascinating themes to explore when visiting the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana is the relationship between founder Federico Borromeo and his collection: Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio,’s Basket of Fruit is the most concrete example, as it allows us to understand how central the theme of nature has been and still is to the Pinacoteca. For Federico Borromeo, in fact, nature, its variety and beauty, were always conceived as a gift to be recognized and celebrated. This is why undisputed masterpieces such as the Basket of Fruit, the Flemish works in the “Landscapes” room, from Jan Brueghel to Paul Brill, as well as the small, moving tondo by Sandro Botticelli, seem to reflect the same optimistic spirit as Cardinal Borromeo.

The visit is intended as a true journey through the faces that make the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana’s collection famous: we arrive at the famous Musician painted in Milan by Leonardo da Vinci, the only portrait of the artist still in the city, accompanied by the tender portraits of Bernardino Luini, master of devotional art, and the realism of Figino, who gives us “the truest effigy” of Saint Charles Borromeo. We continue our journey under the brilliant gaze of Paolo Morigia portrayed by Fede Galizia, and the resoluteness of Countess Prati Morosini by Hayez, finally reaching the delicate face of the Duchess of the Cardinal. Looks, thoughts, smiles, which allow us to tell stories that move, surprise, and enrich.

A tour dedicated to women but open to all who wish to rediscover the Pinacoteca’s masterpieces from a new perspective. The Ambrosiana holds numerous female portraits: mothers, saints, sinners, daughters, duchesses, widows… Their stories shine through vividly through the works of the extraordinary artists who painted them, revealing an incredible wealth of faces, attitudes, passions, joys, and sufferings common to women of the past and contemporary women.

Piazza San Sepolcro is a miniature Milan: it encompasses the ancient entrance to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, founded in 1609, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from the year 1000, the 15th-century Palazzo Castani, and the imposing 20th-century Torre Littoria.
The tour winds through the halls of the famous Pinacoteca, founded in 1618 by Federico Borromeo—the first museum open to the public in Milan—allowing us to admire its most celebrated masterpieces, from Leonardo to Raphael to Caravaggio. It concludes with a descent into the crypt of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the stones of the ancient forum of Mediolanum. A true journey through time, descending into Milan’s subsoil to grasp the stratification and a descent into the most ancient layers of the city: even Leonardo da Vinci knew this was the true heart of Milan!