Description
The Museo Storico Navale in Venice, run by the Italian Navy, tells the maritime story of Venice and of Italy. It stands in a former Republic granary on the San Biagio waterfront, a few steps from the Arsenal, and spreads over five floors with 42 rooms.
The first two floors hold the equipment and the protagonists of the Venetian and Italian navies. There is a room devoted to the Bucintoro, the golden galley on which, every year on Ascension Day, the doge sailed out into the lagoon and threw a ring into the water, the wedding with the sea.
The last Bucintoro was destroyed by the French in 1798, to extract the gold from its decorations. The museum still keeps the great statue of Justice from an earlier Bucintoro, launched in 1526.
On the third floor there are models of lagoon boats, gondolas and ex-votos. This is also where you will see the gondola of Peggy Guggenheim, donated to the museum after her death. On the fourth, the "Swedish room" on the ties between Venice and Sweden and a shell collection.
The Padiglione delle Navi, in the Arsenal's old oar workshop, houses real Venetian and military vessels. Among the pieces are part of the engine room of the Elettra, Guglielmo Marconi's yacht, and the bell of the ship Eritrea.
The display also includes cannons, mortars and weapons from the 16th to the 20th century, models of galleys and of Eastern vessels, and the anchors of the Austro-Hungarian ships Viribus Unitis and Tegetthoff.
The church of San Biagio, the old place of worship of Venetian sailors, is part of the museum too. It holds the remains of Admiral Angelo Emo and paintings of St Barbara, patron saint of seafarers.
Before it was a museum, the building was a granary: it supplied the fleet and the ovens that baked ship's biscuit, the staple food of the galley slaves. The museum was founded in 1923 and moved here from the Arsenal in 1964.
The first two floors hold the equipment and the protagonists of the Venetian and Italian navies. There is a room devoted to the Bucintoro, the golden galley on which, every year on Ascension Day, the doge sailed out into the lagoon and threw a ring into the water, the wedding with the sea.
The last Bucintoro was destroyed by the French in 1798, to extract the gold from its decorations. The museum still keeps the great statue of Justice from an earlier Bucintoro, launched in 1526.
On the third floor there are models of lagoon boats, gondolas and ex-votos. This is also where you will see the gondola of Peggy Guggenheim, donated to the museum after her death. On the fourth, the "Swedish room" on the ties between Venice and Sweden and a shell collection.
The Padiglione delle Navi, in the Arsenal's old oar workshop, houses real Venetian and military vessels. Among the pieces are part of the engine room of the Elettra, Guglielmo Marconi's yacht, and the bell of the ship Eritrea.
The display also includes cannons, mortars and weapons from the 16th to the 20th century, models of galleys and of Eastern vessels, and the anchors of the Austro-Hungarian ships Viribus Unitis and Tegetthoff.
The church of San Biagio, the old place of worship of Venetian sailors, is part of the museum too. It holds the remains of Admiral Angelo Emo and paintings of St Barbara, patron saint of seafarers.
Before it was a museum, the building was a granary: it supplied the fleet and the ovens that baked ship's biscuit, the staple food of the galley slaves. The museum was founded in 1923 and moved here from the Arsenal in 1964.