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| Michele da Verona The Crucifixion 1501 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Giovanni Martini St Ursula among the Virgins ca. 1503-1507 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Francesco Francia Annunciation 1505 tempera and oil on panel, transferred to canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Francesco Bonsignori St Louis and St Francis holding the Monogram of Christ 1506-1507 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Luca Signorelli Madonna and Child enthroned with St James the Greater, St Simon, St Francis and St Bonaventure 1507 oil on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
"The picture gallery of the Brera, one of the finest in Italy, occupies an imposing palace with a good courtyard by Ricchini," as the Encyclopædia Britannica reported in 1911. Built as a Jesuit college in 1651, the complex became state property after the Order's suppression during the 1770s. At that time the site was turned over to Milan's Accademia di Belle Arti. Thus, the Brera Gallery began as a repository for plaster casts, prints and paintings used as models by the Academy students. The space was enlarged early in the 19th century to accommodate works of art seized by Napoleon from churches and convents in northern Italy (which is to say those works deemed not quite precious or portable enough to be shipped to Paris and the Louvre as imperial booty, where many of Napoleon's finest thefts remain to this day). Thus, unlike other important Italian museums, the Brera was born not from private but from political and public collecting. Collection-building by confiscation also explains why holdings are to this day heavily weighted in favor of large altarpieces and other similar specimens of church-sponsored art.
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| Bernardino Zenale Madonna and Child enthroned with St James, St Philip and the family of Antonio Busti (Donors) ca. 1515-18 oil on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Giovanni Mansueti St Mark in Alexandria baptizing Ananias ca. 1519-24 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Ludovico Mazzolino Raising of Lazarus 1527 oil on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Girolamo da Santa Croce St Stephen ca. 1530-40 oil on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Agnolo Bronzino Portrait of Andrea Doria in the guise of Neptune ca. 1531-33 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Gaudenzio Ferrari Martyrdom of St Catherine of Alexandria 1540 oil on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Simone Peterzano Venus and Cupid with Two Satyrs in a Landscape ca. 1570-73 oil on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Federico Barocci Martyrdom of St Vitalis 1583 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Giovanni Ambrogio Figino Madonna and Child enthroned with St John the Evangelist and St Michael Archangel 1590 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |