BRERA, Brera Palace

To reach Milan's most important museum you first have to cross a beautiful arcaded courtyard dating back to the seventeenth century that was created when the Brera Palace housed the Jesuit school.

A large bronze statue of Napoleon stands at the courtyard's center, and is a monumental neoclassical work by Antonio Canova. As you probably know, Napoleon was short and chubby, but here he is presented naked with a much more athletic and slender physique, transformed in the image of Mars and looking intently down upon the small image of Victory.

Napoleon's presence in the entrance courtyard is not by fate: it was Napoleon himself who wanted Milan to house a collection of the paintings captured in military campaigns throughout Italy. The museum was inaugurated precisely on Napoleon's birthday, August 15, 1809....