Ambrosiana Art Gallery

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Milan is beautiful and has many other sights but I remember this Gallery for 3 main things:

1. Got a haircut nearby before going in a tiny little hairdresser in a side alley before going but one of the best cuts I've had anywhere.

2. Leanardos "Portrait of a Musician" there is some dispute as to whether it is really a Da Vinci but very intricate small wood panel painting the thing is compared to the "Last Supper" which is on a church wall and a bit faded (the church was bombed in WWII they had to protect it with sandbags plus the paint he used deteriorated quickly), this looks like it was painted yesterday and you can walk right up to it. There are security guards watching of course but compared to the Mona Lisa which is behind a case with throngs pressed in front of you, no one else was looking at the "Musician" when I was there and I was able to contemplate it as long as I wanted close up, like having a dialog with the artist trying to see what he was communicating, how he created it.

3. Raphael's Cartoon for the "School of Athens" painting in the Vatican (this is just a charcoal on paper sketch the one in the Vatican is painted). It is full size covering a wall but again can get fairly close, and it is the initial concept being brought to life by the artist, to me even more fundamental than the painting which he then copied from this. I've not yet been to Rome or the Vatican so this was like an "Appetizer" that will make me appreciate the real painting more hopefully when I see it one day. Also one figure in it looks a lot like a person I once knew although from pictures of the painted version the figure there does not so much resemble. Raphael also used faces of himself, Davinci and Michealangelo in it which is interesting in itself like a poster for the age.

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