Italy Guide
Lombardy and the lakes
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
Address: Piazza Pio 2 The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana Opening time: Tues– Sun 10am–5.30pmPrice: €8 
www.ambrosiana.it was founded in the early seventeenth century by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who assembled one of the largest libraries in Europe here. The main draw though is his art collection, stamped with his taste for Jan Brueghel, sixteenth-century Venetians and some of the more kitsch followers of Leonardo. Among many mediocre works, there is a rare painting by Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of a Musician, a cartoon by Raphael for the School of Athens, and a Caravaggio considered to be Italy's first still-life. The prize for the quirkiest exhibit is shared between a pair of white gloves that Napoleon reputedly wore at Waterloo, and a lock of Lucrezia Borgia's hair – displayed for safe-keeping in a glass phial ever since Byron (having decided that her hair was the most beautiful he had ever seen) extracted a strand as a keepsake from the library downstairs, where it used to be kept unprotected.