Brera is a district (" quartiere") of

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 ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It is located within the Zone 1 (the historical core of the city) and it is centred on Via ''Brera''. The name stems from Medieval Italian "braida" or "brera", derived from Old Lombardic "brayda" (often Latinized as "praedium"), meaning a land expanse either cleared of trees or naturally lacking them. This is because around the year 900, the Brera district was situated just outside Milan's city walls and was kept clear for military reasons. The root of the word is the same as that of the Dutch city of

Breda Breda () is a city and municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Brabant. The name derived from ''brede Aa'' ('wide Aa' or 'broad Aa') and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. Breda has ...

's name and the English word "broad". Brera houses the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and the Brera Art Gallery, which prominently contributed to the development of Brera as an artists' neighbourhood and a place of

bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

atmosphere, sometimes referred to as "the milanese

Montmartre Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...

". Both the academy and the gallery are located in

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 th ...

, the main historical building of the area; this same building also houses Milan's botanical garden as well as an astronomical observatory and the

Braidense National Library The or Braidense National Library, usually known as the Biblioteca di Brera, is a public library in Milan, in northern Italy. It is one of the largest libraries in Italy. Initially it contained large historical and scientific collections before i ...

. Other features that contribute to the character of Brera include restaurants, bars, nightclubs, antique and art shops, colourful street markets, as well as

fortune teller Fortune telling is the practice of prediction, predicting information about a person's life.J. Gordon Melton, Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling ...

s' booths. From 1998 to 2002 novelist

Paolo Brera Paolo Alberto Brera (16 September 1949 – 21 February 2019) was an Italian economist, academic, journalist, multilingual translator and novelist. Biography Brera was born in Milan, the third son of journalist and writer Gianni Brera and teach ...

, along with Franco Brera and Francesca Brera, edited and published the magazine ''Brera'', devoted to the Brera district. Well-known journalists, art critics and fiction writers contributed over the years, including Rossana Bossaglia,

Giuseppe Pontiggia Giuseppe Pontiggia (; 25 September 1934 – 27 June 2003) was an Italian literature, Italian writer and literary critic. Biography He was born in Como, and moved to Milan with his family in 1948. In 1959 he graduated from the Università Cattoli ...

, Guido Vergani, Vittoria Colpi, Carlo Castellaneta and Giulio Signori.

Footnotes

{{coord, 45, 28, 17, N, 9, 11, 06, E, source:kolossus-itwiki, display=title Districts of Milan