The Gallerie dell’Accademia: the great masters of Venetian art

A unique collection of works by the great masters of Venice and the region Veneto’s art scene from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century

An unmissable step in the discovery of the art and history of Venice, the Gallerie dell’Accademia is one of the most impressive and precious collection of Venetian and Veneto paintings in the world.

It is located in the monumental complex of the Great School of Santa Maria della Carità, which includes the church and the monastery of the Lateran Canons, built by Andrea Palladio, opposite the Accademia Bridge. The museum hosts and exhibits Byzantine and Gothic fourteenth century art, work of Renaissance artists like Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Veronese, Tintoretto, Tiziano, Tiepolo, the eighteenth century landscape painters such as Canaletto, Guardi, Bellotto, Longhi, but also sculptures and drawings, including the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci. Giorgione’s Tempest, Lorenzo Lotto’s Portrait of a Young Gentleman, Paolo Veronese’s Convitto in Casa di Levi, are just some of the masterpieces displyed in the rooms.

In 1750 the museum was founded by the Academy of Fine Arts Institution in Venice, an important art school whose first president was Giambattista Tiepolo and where many great masters, such as Carlo Scarpa and Emilio Vedova, have taught.

Only in 2004 the two companies separated and the Academy of Fine Arts found a new venue, better suited for the growing number of students and the evolution of its teaching, in the beautiful Palazzo degli Incurabili in the area of the ‘Zattere’.

Since 2016 seven additional new rooms have enriched the Palladian wing of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, where Antonio Canova’s art works can be found; his work is displayed in the gallery overlooking the courtyard and in the tablinum, one of Palladio’s masterpieces.  One of the rooms is dedicated to the artists who have influenced the history of European painting and determined the international openness of Venetian painting, including Sebastiano Ricci, Rosalba Carriera, Canaletto, Guardi.

The great exhibition in progress is the one of Canova, Hayez and Cicognara. The last glory of Venice is celebrating the bicentennial of the foundation of the Galleries and the three Venetian intellectuals, Count Leopoldo Cicognara, the sculptor Antonio Canova and the painter Francesco Hayez, who since 1815 onwards have laid the foundations for the birth of a museum of international importance.