Accademia
The Accademia di Belle Arti is Venice’s school of art and is uniformly known throughout Venice as the Accademia. Situated on the south bank of the Grand Canal, it gives its name to one of the three bridges across the canal, the Ponte dell’Accademia. The Gallerie dell’Accademia is the home of one of the world’s greatest specialised art collections and is one of the main tourist destinations in Venice.
History
The Accademia was moved to its present premises in 1807 at the order of the Napoleonic occupying forces. This administration had disbanded many institutions in Venice including some churches, convents and scuole. The Scuola della Carita, the Convento dei Canonici Lateranensi and the church of Santa Maria della Carita thus became the home of the Accademia. The Scuola della Carita was the oldest of the six Scuole Grande and the building dates back to 1343, though the scuola was formed in 1260. The Convento dei Canonici Lateranensi was started in 1561 by Palladio, though it was never fully completed. Santa Maria della Carita dates from 1441 by Bartolomeo Bon.
Contents
The Gallerie dell’Accademia contains masterpieces of Venetian painting up to the 18th century, generally arranged chronologically though some thematic displays are evident.
Artists represented include:
Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Bellini, Canaletto (Antonio Canal), Vittore Carpaccio, Rosalba Carriera, Francesco Guardi, Giorgione (da Castelfranco), Pietro Longhi, Lorenzo Lotto, Andrea Mantegna , Giambattista Piazzetta, Giambattista Tiepolo), Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari)
See also
External links
- Official website
- Virtual tours of the gallery and clickable maps of the exhibits (Italian text)
- Satellite image from Google Maps (at the south end of the long bridge)