Brera video
 
The Brera Picture Gallery is located in the homonymous building in Via Brera 28 in Milan. The Gallery is the first museum in Milan and one of the most outstanding picture gallery in the world as it houses some of the most prestigious selections of antique and modern picture masterpieces as well as important sculptures by Italian artists of the XXth century. 

Among the artists, Gentile da Fabriano, Mantegna, Bellini, Tintoretto, Bramantino, Piero della Francesca and Raffaello Sanzio, Caravaggio, Tiepolo, Tintoretto.


Full  € 10.50
Half € 8.00
Free € 5.50
Rate includes ticket, pre-sales fees, 1.50 Euro and online service fees 4.00 Euro.

Opening Times:


From Tuesday to Sunday 8.30 am - 7.15 pm 
Closed: Every Monday1st January1st May25 December 
Disabled access: Lift 
Cloak-room: free for bags and umbrellas 

By the way only six days until we go to Italy! So be prepared and get ready!
Let's go! 
Ciao Italy!
By Avanea Kris Levien 23:41 11/7/2012
Site: http://www.milan-museum.com/brera1.html
 
As we are going to Switzerland too, here is a useful article and the site which the article is from, It is a useful and helpful site with loads of information about Switzerland. 
To go to site click here.
Electrical Power and Power Plug in Switzerland
1. Voltage and frequency:Voltage and frequency are the same in most European countries:

  • Voltage: 220 V
  • Frequency: 50 Hz
For electrical devices with high power consumption (such as water heathers, air conditioners etc.), it is possible to have a 380 V power supply, but they use different connectors, so it is not possible to plug a 220 V device into a 380 V power outlet.
2. Power plug:This is what the Swiss power plug and power outlet look like (not in true scale !):

The distance between the pin at the top and the pin at the bottom is 19 mm. This dimension is the same in most European countries. On the picture above, the pin at the top is connected to phase and the pin at the bottom is connected to the neutral line. The pin in the middle is connected to ground, this pin is optional on the plug. This pin layout is found in Switzerland only.
 
The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci, Milan, Italy - visitor information

Henry James called it ‘an illustrious invalid’ while Aldous Huxley called it ‘the saddest work of art in the world’. Neither were talking about the subject matter of one of the world’s most important and moving works of art, but about centuries of appalling neglect, which saw Leonardo’s Last Supper assume the condition of a fly-blown poster on a subway wall.

You’ll find the painting in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. In a permanent process of restoration, due to its state of decay, first sight of it makes it clear exactly what James meant. People visit the painting ‘with leave-taking sighs and almost death bed or tiptoe precautions’ he noted, and such is its peeling, crumbling state that you cannot believe the painting will still be intact should you choose to visit again.

A large part of the blame lies with Leonardo da Vinci himself of course. Quixotically he chose to complete his masterpiece with oil paint (a far less reliable medium in Renaissance times than today) rather than with the fast-drying and stable watercolour fresco technique. Within five years the painting was crumbling. Two hundred years later, Napoleon’s troops were using the wall and painting for target practice. A Second World War bomb flattened most of Santa Maria, leaving only the wall bearing Leonardo’s painting … a miracle perhaps?

Two hundred years of restoration beg the question: how much of what we see is actually Leonardo’s work? And restoration, of course, was markedly more intrusive in past years than is the fashion today.

And yet it still fascinates visitors, a fascination only increased by its central role in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. The parlous state of the painting makes it all the more tantalising trying to work out whether that is a man or Mary Magdalene. The publication of the book seems to have achieved the impossible, to make The Last Supper Leonardo’s most famed and viewed painting, outstripping the Mona Lisa.

It’s a dramatic spectacle, taking up a whole wall of the church, the life-size depictions of the figures contributing to the scene’s drama. The figures of the disciples are grouped in a triangular Trinity formation around Christ. In a peculiar trick of perspective, the walls of the room within the canvas seem to recede from the walls of the church itself. All lines focus on the soon-to-be-crucified Christ at the centre. 
And even through the crumbling oils and patchy restoration, the brilliance of Leonardo’s work remains. He scoured the streets of Milan for more than two years, searching for faces to make the visages of the disciples. The monks complained, after months of work, that the face of Judas Iscariot was still not in place. The arch and acerbic Leonardo, never a great fan of the clergy, replied that in all Milan he had been unable to find a countenance sufficiently soaked in evil. But if pushed he would use the face of the prior. He got there in the end. Vasari writes that Judas’s face is ‘the very embodiment of treachery and inhumanity’.

Be warned that this is a very popular attraction, and it’s advisable to attempt to book well ahead of your visit … or prepare to be disappointed. An excellent audio guide helps you to make the most of the painting.

Even if you're in Milan for just the one day - indeed you may be visiting explicitly to view the Last Supper - do try to make time to visit the principal Milan art gallery, the Pinacoteca Brera.
From:http://www.tickitaly.com/galleries/davinci-last-supper.php
Please click Read More/The Title!
 

Picture
The Last Supper, Milan

 

The story of Architecture by Jonathan Glancey

This book is a very interesting, helpul and useful book, look at the excerpt below:
P.S: If you don't have this book I can borrow it to you.
RENAISSANCE ITALY
THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN
A WATER SHED IN the sotry of arcitecture, the Renaissance marked the opening up of trade routes and banking. the invention of the movable type, by Gutenberg in 1450, and thus printing...

    Author

    Avanea Levien is excited, happy and joyful regarding her Italy trip at 17 July.She loves sweets and desserts.
    She will be going to Italy with her friends Kara Lane and Jenna Le Treidishonall. She will post daily news about their trip here.

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