Art history at the theater: a series of lectures in Milan to learn about art from the 1400s to the 1900s

Amici di Brera launch the new Storie dell’Arte project , in collaboration with the City of Milan, the Piccolo Teatro di Milano - Teatro d’Europa and the Pinacoteca di Brera: a cycle of eighteen theater lectures on the history of art from the 15th century to the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, designed for the city of Milan. Under the scientific direction of Marco Carminati, the project will delve into each century with three different voices in three different appointments, scheduled one Sunday a month at 11 a.m., from January 26, 2025 to December 2026, at the venues of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano - Teatro d’Europa, namely at Teatro Grassi and Teatro Studio Melato.

Each lesson will be accompanied by a projection of images of the works of art being narrated, with which anecdotes, historical connections and references to the social context of the different eras will be associated. The lectures are aimed at both novices and experts in the field, friends of museums, schools and citizens with the intention of bringing everyone closer to art. Art historians will thus take the audience on a long journey to learn about the deep connections between the works of the past and society, in a constant dialogue with the contemporary.

Histories of Art will also leave the theater and enter the twelve museums in the city collaborating on the project: Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano, Castello Sforzesco, GAM Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Milano, Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, Museo Diocesano Carlo Maria Martini, Museo del Duomo di Milano, Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Museo del Novecento, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Palazzo Morando | Costume Moda Immagine, Palazzo Moriggia | Museo del Risorgimento, FAI - Villa Necchi Campiglio. The public will be invited to see the works live and learn more about the artists featured in the morning lecture at the theater through guided tours, meetings, workshops for children, and focus on the great masterpieces. The monthly appointment will be at 11 a.m. at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan with a History of Art lecture and, for those who are interested, will continue in the afternoon with in-depth lectures in Milanese museums.

With this initiative, the Friends of Brera aim to promote and support access to artistic heritage and stimulate learning through active participation, interaction and live experience, inviting the public to go to the theater, visit museums and learn about Milan and its institutions.

“Stories of Art is a valuable initiative that demonstrates how even art told can be transformed into a living and participatory experience,” says Milan City Councilor for Culture Tommaso Sacchi. “This series of lectures at the theater, covering six centuries of creativity, offers the public a tool to discover the beauty and value of our artistic heritage. But what makes the project really special is the possibility, after each meeting, to visit the city’s museums, including our civic museums, and see live the works and places narrated from the stage of the Piccolo Teatro. It is an invitation to a continuous dialogue between past and present, an opportunity to immerse oneself in Milan’s cultural richness and to fully experience its role as a reference point for art and culture.”

“In 2026 the Friends of Brera Association will turn 100 years old. In preparation for this important date we are putting in place a series of initiatives, of which the ’Histories of Art’ course (which will extend over the two-year period 2025-2026) is the first to get underway,” adds Carlo Orsi, president of the Association of Friends of Brera and Milan Museums. “Talking about art history to the city and citizens and doing it in the venues of Milanese Theaters is a way of fulfilling well the mission of the Friends of Brera. It is to make Italian artistic heritage better and better known, starting with the treasures preserved in Brera and in our city, so as to induce people not only to know and enjoy the beauty of art, but to take care of it and protect it, also by joining associations like ours.”

“This is an extraordinary project, the one conceived by the Amici di Brera, who have been supporting the Pinacoteca di Brera for a century and are one of the most important associations in Italy that deal with art and the dissemination of art,” says Angelo Crespi, Director of the Pinacoteca di Brera. “I am happy that the Piccolo Teatro is the place chosen for the lecture series, as the symbolic theater of the city of Milan, and that all the Milanese museum institutions have been involved. In fact, with the ’Stories of Art’ cycle, a network of inclusive subjects is set up that can contribute to making Milan, more and more, a city of art and at the same time provide the citizens of Lombardy with the opportunity to experience their institutions, increasing participation in the cultural life of the city.”

“Experience teaches: art history is one of the disciplines that-if well told-has the magical power to engage, entertain and enthuse the public,” says Marco Carminati, vice president of the Associazione Amici di Brera e dei Musei Milanesi and scientific curator of the Storie dell’Arte project. “Precisely with this triple ambition (to engage, entertain and enthuse), we thought of offering to the city of Milan the long educational experience born within the Friends of Brera. In the theater, once a month, on Sunday mornings, for two consecutive years university professors, museum directors, journalists and skilled popularizers will take turns in narrating six centuries of art history, from the 15th to the 20th century. Each according to their own slant and sensibility, but all united by the desire to convey to others the overwhelming passion that art brings.”

“The Piccolo Teatro di Milano is happy to represent one of the vertices of this new ideal triangulation, which will link it to the City of Milan and the Pinacoteca di Brera, in the path, imagined by the Amici di Brera for the city, through the history of art,” says finally Claudio Longhi, Director of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano - Teatro d’Europa. “For many seasons now, the Piccolo has made dialogue and networking among Milan’s cultural institutions one of its founding values and cornerstones. So is, in the same way, the intersection and contamination between artistic languages, both when they are amalgamated in the construction of a show intertwining with the dramaturgy, set design and costumes, and when, as in this case, they find on stage the ideal horizon to involve the community in a path, shared, of knowledge and experience. The project that the Friends of Brera have built, animating the metropolitan fabric with new synergies and trajectories, fits harmoniously into our vision of a theater open to the city and in dialogue with it, through all its voices.”

Ticketing and conventions

The Stories of Art will be accessible at the full price of 15 euros per lesson with the possibility of purchasing a package of three lessons at a cost of 30 euros.
For Under 26s, the ticket price will be 5 euros, while for Over 65s it will be 12 euros per lesson.
Discounts dedicated to Amici di Brera Members and Milano Museo Card holders: a single lesson will cost 10 euros and it will be possible to purchase a package of three lessons for 24 euros.
Until February 2025, Amici di Brera will give new Members an appointment of Stories.

Find out the full program here: https://amicidibrera.org/storie-dellarte/

Photo by Masiar Pasquali

Art history at the theater: a series of lectures in Milan to learn about art from the 1400s to the 1900s

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