Milan: The Ambrosian Library and Gallery

The Pinoteca Ambrosiana is Milan's best known art museum. It has works by a number of masters, but probably is most famous for the Codex Atlanticus, the largest collection of Leonardo's notebooks, held by the associated Biblioteca Ambrosiana. A few pages of it are on display, carefully preserved and guarded. We had visited the Ambrosiana in 2011, but it has been, what?--days!--since we were last in a museum, so I wanted to return. This on Sunday, April 28th.

Entrance to the Ambrosiana

Nice Botticelli tondo

Ditto Ghirlandiao

And a Pinturrichio

Rene Ssance, Death of St. Kermit

Detail

From 20 paces you'd swear this was a Leonardo, and you
wouldn't be far off: it's Bernardino Luini's Sacred Family
with St. Ann and St. John; Luini was a member of
Leonardo's inner circle, and his works were often attributed
to Mr. Smoky

One of the attractions of the Ambrosiana for me is this, the cartoon of Rafael's
great School of Athens, in the former papal apartments in the Vatican; in charcoal,
and, of course, the whole wall; brilliantly displayed with a small library of books
in the room to look at and help with the comparison between the plan and its
execution

Of course the big change is the addition of Michaelangelo as Heraclitus and
Rafael himself somewhere on the far right; Plato is played by Mr. Smoky himself

Another attraction of the Ambrosiana are several Brueghels, well, Jan Brueghels,
not the biggie Brueghels

Mr. Nice Guy Expulsion

Looking down into a reading room of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana; Vicki notes
the humongous card catalogs on the right

Moving right along, this is identified as a Madonna and
Bambino by the Master of San Miniato; San Miniato is/
was a monastery overlooking Florence, just above the
Michaelangelo Belvedere (look for scores of tour buses);
San Miniato himself was one of those early Christian
martyrs who was decapitated but who picked up his head
and walked off into the sunset...

Anyhow, as I look at her, I am thinking Simonetta and that this is a lost
Botticelli; it's of exactly the right age, later 1400s; think about it

In addition to all the artwork, the Ambrosiana has some nice interiors

Never miss an Avercamp winter scene, even if it's horribly lost in Milan

Courtyard

Now in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana

With its large exhibit of pages from Leonardo's notebooks; even his engineering
drawing are smoky, chiaroscuro

And, really by Leonardo, and not Luini, his Portrait of a Musician, oil on panel,
c. 1519

Interestingly, there's not all that much to the gift shoppe