Gallerie dell’Accademia: the best of Venetian art

Gallerie dell'Accademia (c) Matteo de Fina
Gallerie dell'Accademia (c) Matteo de Fina
This is the most important museum in Venice, with over 800 works by Venetian and Italian masters who have influenced the European art in recent centuries: from the 13th century Byzantine to the Vedutists of the 18th century.

The building at the foot of the Accademia Bridge, which once housed the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Carità, the church of the same name and its convent, now houses a very rich pictorial museum that traces the history of art from the 13th to the 18th century. Among the major artists represented in the 37 rooms of the Galleries are Tintoretto, Titian (“La Pietà”), Canaletto, Giorgione (“La Tempesta”), Giovanni Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio (“Il ciclo delle storie di Sant’Orsola”), Cima da Conegliano, Veronese (“Il convito in casa di Levi”) and 18th century Vedutisti such as Canaletto, Guardi, Bellotto and Longhi. In the Gallerie dell’Accademia there is also the famous pencil and ink on paper drawing of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” (1490 circa), which represents the ideal proportions of the human body (it is exhibited only on special occasions).

The Galleria di Palazzo Cini, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Palazzo Grassi-Punta della Dogana, and the Gallerie dell’Accademia are connected in the Dorsoduro Museum Mile, a unique cultural itinerary of eight centuries of world art history. A few museums along a mile-long path in the Dorsoduro district, between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal: an itinerary where visitors can admire masterpieces of Venetian painting from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in the Gallerie dell’Accademia and the latest contemporary production on display at the Punta della Dogana. On the way, visitors can also explore the former homes of great collectors such as Vittorio Cini and Peggy Guggenheim and view their respective collections.

A new exhibition project by the museum has begun in October 2020: “A masterpiece for Venice” sees the displaying of a number of masterpieces of the Venetian Renaissance coming from the most important international museums. Exceptional loans that fit perfectly inside the museum context of the Galleries and create a dialogue with other works of the permanent collection, as well as with the lagoon city.