Gallerie dell'Accademia Audio Guide

Gallerie dell'Accademia: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Gallerie dell'Accademia

   Welcome to Campo de la Carità, on the south bank of the Grand Canal in the sestiere of Dorsoduro. This is the foot of the Ponte dell'Accademia, the wooden bridge that gives the neighborhood its landmark. Behind the museum's doors sits the Gallerie dell'Accademia, a place that tells the story of Venetian painting from the fourteenth century to the eighteenth. The name sounds like a single building, but it is really a family of them. The museum occupies a vast complex that includes the Scuola Grande, the church of Santa Maria della Carità, and the former monastery of the Lateran Canons. The vaporetto stop beside you and the bridge are both named after the art academy that once shared these walls. If you arrive on foot, the walk from Piazzale Roma or the Santa Lucia railway station takes about 20 minutes. Over the next few minutes, I will show you how a religious complex became a school of art and then a museum. We will look at how the collection was assembled, and at the paintings that make the journey through the rooms feel like a story told in light and color.

2. 02

   From Academy to Museum

   The story starts in 1750, when the Venetian Republic decided to give the city an academy for painters and sculptors. Its first director was the painter Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, and the academy began in a building called the Fonteghetto della Farina, near the landing at Saint Mark's. The move to this spot came with Napoleon. After the fall of the Republic, the Santa Maria della Carità complex passed to the state. In 1807, by Napoleonic edict, it became home to the academy, which was renamed the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and to its gallery. That is why the museum carries the academy's name even though it began as a teaching collection. The gallery opened to the public in 1817, after major works to adapt the historic rooms, and it drew crowds of visitors. For decades the school managed it. Then, in 1879, the two institutions separated, though they kept sharing the same former monastery, church and school buildings. The academy finally left in 2004, freeing space that was renovated for the needs of a modern museum.

3. 03

   A Collection Built from Closures and Gifts

   Most of what hangs here arrived because Venice was changing. Monasteries, churches and fine palaces were closed or emptied, and their paintings needed a home. Many works from suppressed churches and convents were gathered here and joined what the academy already owned. Then came the generosity of collectors. Girolamo Molin left a group of early works in 1816. In 1838 Girolamo Contarini's 188 paintings arrived, including Giovanni Bellini's Madonna of the little trees and scenes of Venetian life by Pietro Longhi. In 1850 Felicita Renier gave Piero della Francesca's Saint Jerome and Donor and a Bellini Virgin between two saints. The collections of Molin, Contarini, Renier and Manfrin enriched the galleries between 1816 and 1856. Some paintings also came home from abroad. Among the works restored to Venice from France in 1815 were Paolo Veronese's Feast in the House of Levi and Tintoretto's Miracle of the Slave. Both are now part of the story you can follow here, and they show how the collection was shaped by politics as much as by taste.

4. 04

   Light and Color Through the Rooms

   The paintings are arranged chronologically across 24 rooms, so walking through them is like reading Venetian art from start to finish. The route begins with the Byzantine-style Madonnas of the fourteenth century. It then moves on to the human warmth of Giovanni Bellini's sacred scenes and the revolutionary spirit of Giorgione. Next come the great narrative canvases, the teleri, by Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. Then the three giants of the Renaissance take over: Titian, the most acclaimed, Jacopo Tintoretto, the most prolific, and Paolo Veronese, the most admired. Titian's Presentation of the Virgin measures 345 by 775 centimeters, an enormous canvas that fills the eye like a stage set. The journey continues into the eighteenth century, the era that closed Venice's great artistic season. The building itself is part of the experience, with its vaulted ceilings and a grand staircase. The museum also holds works from outside the Venetian tradition, including Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   As you step back into the campo, look at how the complex sits at the end of the bridge. A church, a scuola and a monastery became an academy, and then one of Venice's most important museums. Each layer left its mark, from the vaulted rooms to the name on the vaporetto stop. Nearby, the fourteenth-century Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia now hosts the museum's restoration laboratories, photographic archives and part of its administrative offices. It is a reminder that this museum is also a place where paintings are cared for. When you cross the bridge, turn around and look back at the building. Try to picture which room might hold Bellini's quiet Madonnas and which might hold Veronese's banquet. Then ask yourself how the same light that pours over the Grand Canal found its way into those centuries of paint.