The guide is an up-to-date source of information for coming to know an extraordinary place of art, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan. Thanks to the rigour of the texts and the quality of the photographs, the volume is both an indispensable aid for visitors to the gallery, and a scientific instrument available to specialists. The story of this amazing collection begins in April 1618, when Cardinal Federico Borromeo donated his collection of paintings, statues and drawings to the Ambrosiana Library, which he himself had founded a few years earlier in 1607. It is one of the most famous art collections in Italy and the world, including masterpieces such as Leonardo’s Musician, Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit, Raphael’s preparatory cartoon for the School of Athens, Titian’s Adoration of the Magi, the Madonna of the Pavilion by Botticelli and numerous examples of the famous vases of flowers painted by Jan Brueghel. Its rooms also present a representative panorama of Italian, and in particular Lombard art, from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century, with works by Morazzone, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Daniele Crespi and Carlo Francesco Nuvolone, Giandomenico Tiepolo, Fra Galgario, Francesco Londonio, Andrea Appiani, Francesco Hayez, Mosè Bianchi, Emilio Longoni, as well as documenting, with numerous valuable examples, the development of the decorative arts in the same centuries.