The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ("academy of fine arts of Brera"), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run

tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

academy of fine arts The following is a list of notable art schools. Accredited non-profit art and design colleges * Adelaide Central School of Art * Alberta College of Art and Design * Art Academy of Cincinnati * Art Center College of Design * The Art Institute ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, Italy. It shares its history, and its main building, with the

Pinacoteca di Brera The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, an outgrowth of the cultural program of ...

, Milan's main public museum for art. In 2010 an agreement was signed to move the accademia to a former

military barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

, the Caserma Magenta in via Mascheroni. In 2018 it was announced that Caserma Magenta was no longer a viable option, with the former railway yard in Via Farini now under consideration as a potential venue for the campus extension.

History

The academy was founded in 1776 by Maria Theresa of Austria. In typical Enlightenment fashion, it shared premises with other cultural and scientific institutions – the astronomical observatory, the Orto Botanico di Brera, the Scuole Palatine for philosophy and law, the Gymnasium, laboratories for physics and chemistry, the Biblioteca di Brera, the agricultural society and, from 1806, the

or art gallery. These were housed in the

Palazzo Brera Palazzo Brera or Palazzo di Brera is a monumental palace in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It was a Jesuit college for two hundred years. It now houses several cultural institutions including the Accademia di Brera, the art academy of ...

, which was built in about 1615 to designs by

Francesco Maria Richini Francesco Maria Richini (also spelled Ricchini) (9 February 1584 – 24 April 1658) was an Italian Baroque architect. Biography He was born in Milan and trained under Lorenzo Binago. He was patronized by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Archbishop ...

, and until the

suppression of the Jesuits The suppression of the Jesuits was the removal of all members of the Society of Jesus from most of the countries of Western Europe and their colonies beginning in 1759, and the abolishment of the order by the Holy See in 1773. The Jesuits we ...

in 1773 had been a

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

college.

The academy

Like other state-run art academies in Italy, the Accademia di Brera falls under the

Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca The Ministry of Education, University and Research (in it, Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca, italic=no or MIUR) is the ministry of the Italian government for the national education system, the Italian universities and ...

, the Italian ministry of education and research. In accordance with

presidential decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...

212 dated 8 July 2005, it awards first- and second-level degrees, specialised degrees,

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

s and

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

s. The accademia has three departments: the department of

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

, with courses in decorative art,

graphic art A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i.e. produced on a flat surface.

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

and

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

; the department of

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

and

applied art The applied arts are all the arts that apply design and decoration to everyday and essentially practical objects in order to make them aesthetically pleasing."Applied art" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art''. Online edition. Oxford Unive ...

, which has courses in

art restoration The conservation and restoration of cultural property focuses on protection and care of cultural property (tangible cultural heritage), including artworks, architecture, archaeology, and museum collections. Conservation activities include prev ...

, design for business, new technologies of art and scenic design; and the department of communication and education in art, with courses in conservation of

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...

and in

art education Visual arts education is the area of learning that is based upon the kind of art that one can see, visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, de ...

. It has about 3,800 students, including about 1,000 foreign students (mostly postgraduates). It participates in the ERASMUS programme, and exchanges students and teachers with institutions in other countries in Europe and elsewhere.

The picture gallery

The picture gallery of the accademia, now the

, was started in 1806, in Napoleonic times. Large numbers of paintings were brought to Milan after the suppression of the convents by Napoleon. The façade of the church of Santa Maria in Brera of the former monastery was torn down and the nave of the church was divided horizontally; the upper floor became the Napoleonic rooms of the art gallery of the Accademia, which opened in 1809 as the Reale Galleria, and the lower floor housed the sculptures of the museum of antiquities. A Sala dei Moderni, which held contemporary works, was started in 1806 by

Giuseppe Bossi Giuseppe Bossi (11 August 1777 – 9 November 1815) was an Italian painter, arts administrator and writer on art. He ranks among the foremost figures of Neoclassical culture in Lombardy, along with Ugo Foscolo, Giuseppe Parini, Andrea Appi ...

. The Pinacoteca became independent of the accademia in 1882, though both remain in Palazzo Brera.

Academics and alumni

Alumni of the academy include the playwright

Dario Fo Dario Luigi Angelo Fo (; 24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian playwright, actor, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. ...

, recipient of the 1997

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

; and the

Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

painter Carlo Carrà, who also taught at the academy from 1939 to 1952. Others who have taught at the Brera include the Venetian painter

Francesco Hayez Francesco Hayez (; 10 February 1791 – 12 February 1882) was an Italian painter. He is considered one of the leading artists of Romanticism in mid-19th-century Milan, and is renowned for his grand historical paintings, political allegories, and ...

, professor of painting from 1822 to 1880; and the architect and writer

Camillo Boito Camillo Boito (; 30 October 1836 – 28 June 1914) was an Italian architect and engineer, and a noted art critic, art historian and novelist. Biography Boito was born in Rome, the son of an Italian painter of miniatures. His mother was of Poli ...

, who was professor of architecture from 1860 to 1909, and for part of that time also president of the academy.

References

{{Authority control Tourist attractions in Milan Culture in Milan Art schools in Italy Art museums and galleries in Milan Education in Milan 1776 establishments in the Habsburg Monarchy Educational institutions established in 1776