Description
The Gallerie dell'Accademia is the great museum of Venetian painting, in the Dorsoduro district, at the foot of the Accademia Bridge. It holds paintings from the 1300s to the 1700s: Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Canaletto.
The museum was born of a catastrophe. When the Serenissima fell and Napoleon arrived, convents were closed in Venice and about two hundred places of worship were suppressed, and their paintings were at risk of vanishing.
Many ended up in Brera, in Milan. Those that remained were gathered at the Academy of Fine Arts, so the students could study them. The site was chosen in 1807: the church of Santa Maria della Carità, the convent and the Scuola Grande della Carità. The collection opened to the public in 1817.
The academicians protested about the expense, but the government did not change its mind. The church was divided into floors, the altars disappeared and the Gothic windows were walled up. The plural name, “Gallerie”, comes from the collection of plaster casts that was added to the paintings.
Then came bequests from collectors, and purchases. Here are Mantegna's St George, and Giorgione's Old Woman and Tempest.
In the mid-1800s the St George and the Old Woman were purchased by Emperor Franz Joseph. From the collectors' bequests come the St Jerome and the Donor by Piero della Francesca and Giovanni Bellini's Madonna and Child between St Catherine and St Mary Magdalene.
Under the timbered ceiling of the old church is displayed Carpaccio's cycle of the Stories of St Ursula, in a room all its own. In the Sala dell'Albergo of the Scuola, still in its original place, is Titian's Presentation of Mary at the Temple.
The drawings are here too, among them Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, shown only on special occasions. During the First World War the masterpieces were moved to safety in Florence, and during the last conflict to scattered depositories.
A tour of the museum touches other artists too: Cima da Conegliano, Tiepolo, Canaletto, and since 2018 new acquisitions such as Hope by Giorgio Vasari. Since 1895 the paintings have been arranged in chronological order, from the 1300s to the 1700s.
In 1923 the apsed hall of the old church was partly recovered, restoring the timbered ceiling and the Gothic windows: under that ceiling the great canvases by Carpaccio have stayed.
Don't miss
• The Tempest.
• The Stories of St Ursula.
• The Presentation of Mary at the Temple.
Did you know?
• Titian's Assumption was here until the 1920s, then returned to the high altar of the Frari.
• Between 1944 and 1949 Carlo Scarpa worked on a renovation and on a new building linked to the nineteenth-century rooms.
The museum was born of a catastrophe. When the Serenissima fell and Napoleon arrived, convents were closed in Venice and about two hundred places of worship were suppressed, and their paintings were at risk of vanishing.
Many ended up in Brera, in Milan. Those that remained were gathered at the Academy of Fine Arts, so the students could study them. The site was chosen in 1807: the church of Santa Maria della Carità, the convent and the Scuola Grande della Carità. The collection opened to the public in 1817.
The academicians protested about the expense, but the government did not change its mind. The church was divided into floors, the altars disappeared and the Gothic windows were walled up. The plural name, “Gallerie”, comes from the collection of plaster casts that was added to the paintings.
Then came bequests from collectors, and purchases. Here are Mantegna's St George, and Giorgione's Old Woman and Tempest.
In the mid-1800s the St George and the Old Woman were purchased by Emperor Franz Joseph. From the collectors' bequests come the St Jerome and the Donor by Piero della Francesca and Giovanni Bellini's Madonna and Child between St Catherine and St Mary Magdalene.
Under the timbered ceiling of the old church is displayed Carpaccio's cycle of the Stories of St Ursula, in a room all its own. In the Sala dell'Albergo of the Scuola, still in its original place, is Titian's Presentation of Mary at the Temple.
The drawings are here too, among them Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, shown only on special occasions. During the First World War the masterpieces were moved to safety in Florence, and during the last conflict to scattered depositories.
A tour of the museum touches other artists too: Cima da Conegliano, Tiepolo, Canaletto, and since 2018 new acquisitions such as Hope by Giorgio Vasari. Since 1895 the paintings have been arranged in chronological order, from the 1300s to the 1700s.
In 1923 the apsed hall of the old church was partly recovered, restoring the timbered ceiling and the Gothic windows: under that ceiling the great canvases by Carpaccio have stayed.
Don't miss
• The Tempest.
• The Stories of St Ursula.
• The Presentation of Mary at the Temple.
Did you know?
• Titian's Assumption was here until the 1920s, then returned to the high altar of the Frari.
• Between 1944 and 1949 Carlo Scarpa worked on a renovation and on a new building linked to the nineteenth-century rooms.