Amid elegant boutiques, historic or trendy clubs, small jewel-like squares, and monumental buildings, Brera exudes an atmosphere of bohemian charm and Belle Époque elegance. It is here that Milan showcases its finest side, and it is here people say “it doesn’t even feel like Milan.” For Brera is both profoundly Milanese and distinctly international. It is home to a blend of avant-garde design stores and traditional artisanship. During the day, the area buzzes with the comings and goings of tourists, students, gallery owners, stylists, designers, and architects. By night, restaurants masquerading as trattorias, modern pizzerias, and lounge bars set up tables in the streets, competing for space with impromptu painters, ‘expert’ tarot card and palm readers. The atmosphere shifts in Corso Garibaldi, where nightlife and shopping thrive in an ever-changing array of clubs and shops that follow fads and set trends, particularly among young people. Just a short distance away, the contrast with the ancient monastic complexes and two impressive churches, S. Simpliciano and S. Marco, is striking.

The heart of Italian journalism also beats in Brera: Via Solferino 28 is the headquarters of the country’s largest national newspaper, the Corriere della Sera. It was 1876, and just a stone’s throw from the Duomo, in two cramped rooms of a building in the Galleria, Eugenio Torelli Viollier was preparing to release of the first copy of the ‘Corriere’: four pages for 5 cents. The newspaper remained in the Galleria until 1888, when it moved to Via S. Pietro all’Orto and Via Verri, the address of the newspaper’s major shareholder, Benigno Crespi. In 1904, the then director Luigi Albertini moved the editorial office to Via Solferino 28, to a building with an eclectic and Liberty style, designed by Luca Beltrami, an architect who had recently rebuilt the Sforza Castle. The ‘Corriere’ soon became an important vehicle for information for the Milanese people and, later, for the whole of Italy.

In Via Solferino, the ‘Corriere’ has spanned many eras, covering years of news and investigations. It has chronicled wars, revolts, pandemics, discoveries, and enterprises, while maintaining a moderate approach to the narration of events, regardless of the editors in charge or the journalists who have walked up and down the grand staircase to sit around the table in the Sala Albertini or at the desks in the newsroom. The ‘Corriere’ has printed the words of Giosuè Carducci, Ada Negri, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Benedetto Croce, Luigi Pirandello, Grazia Deledda, Dino Buzzati, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ennio Flaiano, Oriana Fallaci, and Alberto Moravia. All this makes Via Solferino 28 more than an address: it’s a landmark.