The gallery houses more than 300 paintings, sculptures and drawings, including a precious collection of 60 cartoons by Gaudenzio Ferrari and his school.

Set up in 1837 in the premises of the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts, the Art Gallery was established with declaredly didactic aims, as is attested by the two important nuclei that from the very beginning made it up: the picture gallery of Archbishop Vincenzo Maria Mossi di Morano, rich in over two hundred paintings, and the collection of fifty-nine sixteenth-century cartoons by Gaudenzio Ferrari and his School, donated by Carlo Alberto. Both of these collections were to be an integral part of the artistic education of the students, as the donors explicitly intended.