Ancient churches. The “Brera nella città” project brings ancient, torn frescoes to the Catholic University

There is this paradox in the city: a church that was closed down to make way for a museum, and this very same museum which, weighed down by its legacy (from the closed church and others), has consigned everything to storage. We are talking about Brera. The Pinacoteca, a phoenix rising from the Napoleonic ashes of the ancient church of Santa Maria – the nerve centre and lifeblood of the Order of the Humiliati – has, over the centuries, found itself saddled with a cumbersome legacy: dozens of 15th- and 16th-century frescoes, stripped from closed monasteries and demolished churches in Milan and the surrounding area by the French onslaught. Such numbers make it, at present, the Italian museum housing the largest number of salvaged frescoes. There was a time when some of these were on display; then museum practice took a different turn and, as the works were often too large for already crowded galleries, they ended up being consigned to the storerooms. A great shame, but only until now. Through the ‘Brera nella città’ project (involving the Pinacoteca, the National Museum of Science and Technology – where Brera frescoes by Leonardo’s pupils have long been preserved – and the Catholic University), 37 of these frescoes are on display in several lecture theatres at the university in Largo Gemelli, suitably fitted out and equipped with appropriate climate control. In other words – and here the paradox returns – they are on display in the very place where a monastery once stood, first Benedictine and then Cistercian, built near the tomb of Saint Ambrose, redesigned by Bramante in the late fifteenth century and then, itself, a victim of the Napoleonic suppressions and converted into a military hospital. It was not until the late 1920s that the definitive renovation, designed by Giovanni Muzio, was completed, and the university was inaugurated in 1932.

Thus, the fragments of the walls of many churches that have disappeared from the city map return to a place that was originally sacred: in addition to Santa Maria di Brera, which was mentioned earlier, there were Santa Maria dei Servi, the city headquarters of the Order of the Servants of Mary, once located on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II (where the church of San Carlo now stands), Santa Marta, the church of a female Augustinian monastery that was particularly important in the early 16th century, and Santa Maria delle Vetere in Porta Ticinese, a former female Dominican monastery. The frescoes (some of which are remarkable) bear the signatures of the masters of Lombard art: Michelino da Besozzo, the Borgognone brothers, Vincenzo Foppa, Zenale, and Marco d’Oggiono (a pupil of Leonardo, he is also mentioned with admiration by Vasari in his famous "Vite"). Guided tours will soon be organised so that visitors can admire them on Saturdays.