On May 26, 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned King of Italy in Milan Cathedral and in that capacity was portrayed by Andrea Appiani. The three-quarter-length portrait can be seen today at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the Ambrosiana canvas, painted by the artist at a date that critics suggest was between 1806 and 1808, depends on it. Despite the officiality and solemnity conferred by the rich insignia of the Italic Kingdom, the naturalism and immediacy of the face are especially striking.

Andrea Appiani was born in Milan on May 31, 1754, to physician Antonio Appiani and Marta Maria Liverta. Baptized in the parish of San Carpoforo with the names of Giovanni, Andrea and Melchiorre,[3] his father hoped to make him a good doctor: in 1769-70, when he was fifteen years old, however, he had not yet arrived to study “rhetoric” in the public schools of Milan that already the artistic vocation, aroused by copying numerous prints and drawing a few heads from life, manifested itself in him. It was for this reason that his father, in 1769, allocated his young son first under the guidance of a “mediocre master,”[2] and then in the private school of Carlo Maria Giudici, a painter and sculptor of merit who then enjoyed a distinguished reputation in the city, thanks in part to his association with Anton Raphael Mengs. During his years as a pupil of Giudici the apprentice painter was able to broaden his figurative culture and receive the first rudiments of drawing, studying and reproducing the works of the great Renaissance masters, such as Raphael Sanzio and Giulio Romano. He then attended the studio at the Accademia Ambrosiana of the fresco painter Antonio De Giorgi, with whom he deepened painting by direct comparison with the model of Leonardo and Luini; he then moved on to the atelier of Martin Knoller, who transmitted to him the techniques of fresco and chiaroscuro. He left Knoller for Giuliano Traballesi, whose taste was distinctly more Baroque: it was for this reason that Appiani did not appreciate his teachings, so much so that among his comrades he enjoyed a reputation as a “seccone.” Nevertheless, in this turn of years he was able to make friends with the most eminent artistic personalities of the time: Gaetano Monti, co-disciple of anatomy at the Ospedale Maggiore, was his lifelong friend; Piermarini, Aspari, Parini (Appiani's family, by the way, was also originally from Bosisio), Albertolli, and even Monti and Foscolo, although known later, were all among his intimates.

Pinacoteca Ambrosiana was established in 1618 by cardinal Federico Borromeo, when he donated his art collection to the Ambrosiana library, which was founded by him as well in 1607. The building was named after the patron saint of Milan, St. Ambrose.

It was the first museum in the world to be open to the public. The history of the Pinacoteca and the library goes hand in hand, as this was also the first library to be open to the public. The book collection includes prestigious volumes, among them Petrarch’s Virgil with illuminated manuscript by Simone Martini and Da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus, donated in 1637 by Galeazzo Arconati.

In fact, cardinal’s plan was to display art with its symbology and evocative power to serve Christian values reaffirmed by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which were threatened by the diffusion of the Protestant reformation.

The academy was added in 1637 and transferred to Brera in 1776. It was supposed to be an artistic school of painting, sculpture and architecture which would allow the students to learn from the great models of the history.

The building was designed by architect Fabio Mangone (1587-1629) and it is located in the city center. The space is expanded over 1500 square meters and divided into twenty-two rooms. The cardinal illustrated the works and the objects himself in his book in Latin, Museum (1625), which still today represents the main nucleus of the Pinacoteca.

Through commissions and purchases Federico Borromeo’s collection grew with the paintings of Lombard and Tuscan schools, among them works by Raphael, Correggio and Bernardino Luini and casts from Leone Leoni’s workshop, arriving to a total of 3000 artworks of which 300 are exhibited.

There are great masterpieces such as the Portrait of a Musician by Leonardo Da Vinci (1480), Madonna del Padiglione by Botticelli (1495), the cartoon for the School of Athens by Raphael (before 1510), the Holy Family with St. Anne and Young St. John by Bernardino Luini (1530) and the Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Jacopo Bassano (1547).

A great part of the collection is dedicated to landscape and to still life, because the Cardinal saw the nature as an important tool raising the human mind into the Divine. For this reason, Federico collected Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit and the miniature paintings by Jan Brueghel and Paul Brill.

After the cardinal’s death the collection was enriched with the donations of the artworks from 15th and 16th centuries, such as the frescoes by Bramantino and Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen’s marble self-portraits. Museo Settala, one of the first museums in Italy, founded by canonical Manfredo Settala (1600-1680), was joined to Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in 1751. The museum is a sort of science history museum with a variety of curiosities of all time.

During the period of growth, the museum required some structural and architectural changes as well, including the expansion of the exhibition halls between 1928 and 1931, which were decorated with 13th century miniature motifs of Ambrosian codes, and between 1932 and 1938 a new series of restorations was implemented under the guidance of Ambrogio Annoni. The renowned readjustment in 1963 was curated by architect Luigi Caccia Dominioni and the museum excursus was concluded with the current reorganization between 1990 and 1997.