In the Middle Ages the preparatory cartoon was used by the artists to sketch the composition the figures of the paintings, frescoes or other artworks. In the 16th century was still very much in use by the artists, even by Raphael who used them when he worked on the frescoes in Vatican from 1508 until his death. The cartoon preserved at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana is a particular one, not only because it reflects the creative process of a great artist like Raphael who was working on a historical piece of art, but also because it the largest cartoon of the Renaissance era that has remained in almost perfect condition to our days. This type of work was usually made of perishable materials such as cardboard and it was used often by the artists in their workshops, sometimes only to sketch some small details. The cartoons were destined to be destroyed over time. Pinacoteca Ambrosiana’s cartoon depicts the lower part of the School of Athens, one of the frescoes of Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican which was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1509-1510. The painting, also known as La Filosofia, depicts a group of philosophers and students standing in an ideal Renaissance square, talking, studying and engaging in various activities. Raphael portrayed many of the philosophers in the likeness of the great artists and intellectuals of his time. In the foregorund, at the center of the scene you can see Plato and Aristotle. Leonardo da Vinci is portrayed as Plato who is holding Timaeus, the most important work of the Greek philosopher, while his finger is raised towards the sky, alluding to his theory of ideas, the cornerstone of Platonic doctrine. Aristotle is represented here with the features of Bastiano da Sangallo, the master of perspectives. On both sides of the scene you can see groups of other ancient philosophers such as Socrates, Zeno, Pythagoras, Epicuru and Democritus with young students listening to them, including Alexander the Great and Alcibiades. There are other philosophers with features of the famous painters of the time, such as Donato Bramante, Sodoma, Baldassare Castiglione and Pietro Perugino who was the first famous master from Urbino area. The cartoon represents faithfully the figures and details in the Vatican fresco except for the classical architecture which was used as a background and setting for the scene in the painting. However, it’s the balance of the composition and the harmonious Renaissance clarity characterize the fresco and Raphael’s painting in general. In this preparatory version Raphael’s self-portrait and the figure of the philosopher Heraclitus are missing which he added after completing the painting, depicting him in with the likeness of Michelangelo Buonarroti. Cardinal Federico Borromeo expressed his interest in this cartoon already in 1610, when the work was on loan at the Ambrosiana institution from the collection of Fabio Borromeo Visconti. In 1626 the cardinal was able to buy it from Borromeo Visconti’s widow for six hundred imperial lires, which was a considerable sum at that time.

Raffaello Santi was born in Urbino in 1483. Son of the painter Giovanni Santi was mainly influenced by the artists of the second half of the 15th century who had worked in the court of Montefeltro, such as Francesco Laurana, Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Piero della Francesca.

Raphael studied in Perugino’s workshop, where he concentrated on landscapes and Piero della Francesca’s works and painted calm compositions and characters with delicate features, which was typical for him.

In 1504 he painted The Marriage of the Virgin for the church of San Francesco in Città di Castello (Brera, Milan) which was a step further from the paintings of Perugino, where he showed great perspective for architectural and spatial layout. In the same year he moved to Florence, where he stayed until 1508. He studied the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Fra Bartolomeo. In this period he painted the The Vision of the Knight (London, National Gallery) and other small paintings, but also Madonna of the Grand Duke, portrays of Agnolo and Maddalena Doni, Madonna of the Goldfinch, Cowper Madonna and Tempi Madonna.

In Rome Raphael painted the frescoes of the Loggia in Villa di Agostino Chigi, La Farnesina, with the Triumph of Galatea (1511) and number of other paintings, such as the Portrait of Cardinal (1510 – 1511, Prado Museum) the Madonna of Foligno (1511 -1512, Vatican Museum), the Sistine Madonna (1513-1514, Dresden, Gemaldegalerie) the St. Cecilia (1514, Bologna, Pinanoteca Nazionale) Madonna della Seggiola (1514, Florence, Palatina Gallery) and the portrait of his friend Baldassare Castiglione (1514-1515, Louvre).

During the papacy of Pope Leo X Medici in 1513 Raphael became closer to the papal court and continued the decoration of the Vatican halls. The decoration of the Constantine Room was completed by his students after his death, between 1520 and 1524. During the years in Vatican he also painted cartoons for tapestries with the Acts of the Apostles (1514-1515, Victoria and Albert Museum, London) and from 1514 he dedicated himself mostly to the architecture, studying ancient decorations like those of Domus Aurea, which was recently discovered.

In Villa Chigi he worked in Loggia di Psiche (1517) and then in Vatican Loggias (1518-1519) always with his hard-working students.

As an architect he was responsible for the Chigi chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo and after Bramante’s death in 1514 he was appointed as the architect of the new St. Peter’s. Between 1517 and 1520 he designed the Branconio building in L’Aquila, which since then has been destroyed, and Villa Madama.

In this period he painted the Vision of Ezekiel (1518, Florence, Palatina Gallery) the Portrait of Leo X with Two Cardinals (1518-1519, Florence, Uffzi Gallery) La Fornanina (1518-1519, Rome, Galleria Nazionale D’Arte Antica) and the Transfiguration, completed by his students after his death (Vatican Museum).

Leo X appointed Raphael as the superintendent of the antiquities of the city of Rome, giving him the responsibility for taking care of the artistic and architectural heritage of the city.

Raphael died in Rome at only 37 years old. He was buried in Pantheon.

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.