Brera neighborhood, often dubbed “the Milanese Montmartre,” is a lively and elegant district situated in the heart of Milan. Its charming, cobblestone streets are lined with 18th-century buildings and unique shops offering cosmetics, handicrafts, and furniture. Brera is home to notable theaters, stunning churches, historic cafes, and hosts the annual Milan Design Week.
Chiesa di San Marco
San Marco’s Church in Milan, located in Piazza San Marco, a neoclassical facade from the 18th century and older architectural features. Inside, it showcases various artworks, including paintings by Bernardino Luini and Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo. The church’s crypt holds the remains of Saint Felice da Cantalice, and it was once the site of the renowned Scuola di San Marco during the Renaissance.
The church’s organ, dating back to 1506, is the largest in Lombardy. It was also played by Mozart and Verdi. Mozart was hosted at the Canonica during his first stay in Milan at the age of just fourteen, while Giuseppe Verdi used it for the first performance of the Requiem Mass.
The San Marco Pond was an artificial water basin, commissioned by Galeazzo Maria Sforza.
It was constructed in 1469, known as Tumbun de San Marc. It was filled in 1935.
Bar Jamaica
At Via Brera, 32, stands the famous Bar Jamaica. Opened in 1911, it became a meeting place for intellectuals, politicians, and artists. Among its patrons were contemporary avant-garde artists like Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana, writers and poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Salvatore Quasimodo, photographers like Ugo Mulas and Alfa Castaldi, design icons like Achille Castiglioni and Ettore Sottsass, as well as fashion figures like Fiorucci and Pomellato. The bar also welcomed directors and actors like Dario Fo, Paolo Poli, and Mariangela Melato, along with Italian singer-songwriters and jazz musicians like Giorgio Gaber and Renato Sellani. The bistro is always open, serving from 9:30 am to 2:00 am, offering a variety of dishes from toast to Cotoletta alla Milanese. Due to its limited seating, reservations are recommended, please call +39 02876723.
Piccolo Teatro Giorgio Strehler
Designed by Marco Zanuso and inaugurated in 1998 to the notes of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, the last production to be directed by Giorgio Strehler, the Teatro Strehler is the perfect stage for the grand productions of Luca Ronconi and other masters of the International scene, from Robert Lepage to Peter Brook, from Robert Wilson to Lev Dodin. The theatre also hosts important dance productions, concerts and cinema reviews – a theatre conceived as a complete space. MiX Internation LGBTQ+ Film Festival e Queer Culture, the most important and popular Italian Festival dedicated to the best of national and international LGBTQ+ cinema, as well as one of the most significant in Europe. The 38th edition will be held at the Piccolo Teatro Strehler in Milan from September 26 to September 29, 2024.
How to reach Teatro Strehler:
Largo Greppi 1, Milano
Underground & Urban Lines
M2 Lanza
Tram 2, 4, 12, 14
Bus 57, 61
Milano Design Week
Brera confirms its status as the premier district, the most coveted by the design industry, and the most visited and appreciated by professionals and design enthusiasts. It’s a precious and now essential moment for companies, designers, and industry insiders to reflect on the challenges of contemporaneity through projects aiming to shape new aesthetics, new ways of living, and new models to imagine the future. Among private residences, courtyards, and secret gardens, Brera has revealed its most evocative spaces to the city. Many visitors flock to its streets. Places to discover during the Brera Design Week include the Orto Botanico, La Pelota, Palazzo Clerici, the Cloisters of San Simpliciano, and the Circolo Filologico. Among the special places accessible during the Brera Design Week were notable locations like the Pillars Hall of the Castello Sforzesco and the former Artistic Sacristy of the Chiesa del Carmine.
Palazzo Clerici
Palazzo Clerici was the home of the rich and influential Milanese patrician family of Clerici, in the street of the same name, called in the seventeenth century “Contrada del prestino dei Bossi”. In the eighteenth century the old mansion was completely modified by Marquis Anton Giorgio Clerici (1715-1768) who made it one of the most opulent residences in Milan at the time, with the creation of the famous Galleria degli Arazzi frescoed on the vault by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1741 which also houses tapestries by the Flemish artist Jan Leyniers II and the wood paneling by Giuseppe Cavanna. Periodically, it’s possible to visit Palazzo Clerici. For individuals (a single person can book for a maximum of 6 people), the next guided tour will be on Monday, April 29th, at 3:00 PM and 3:45 PM. The tour is free and lasts approximately 30 minutes. For information and reservations, please email palazzoclerici@ispionline.it.