1700 - Venice requires a special space in order to paint

From the beginning of the 1700s the artists of Venice had felt the necessity to have a suitable place where they could paint. The Reformists of the "Studio di Padova" had asked the "Collegio dei Pittori e degli Scultori" to suggest ways of going about this. The "Collegi" presented a project and on 14th December 1724 the Senate of Veneto decided to establish an Academy to entice and keep in Venice those artists who lived beyond the mountains and who passed through the city on their way to places such as Fiorenza, Bologna and Rome. On 24th September 1750 the Senate granted a room on the second floor of the old Fontego della Farina (wheat warehouse) giving permission for young people to gather there in order to paint on condition, however, that if it became necessary, the area could again be used for public service. The Fontego still remained the seat of the Magistrato della Farina and in the colonnade on the ground floor there stood the small shopkeepers' stands. The funds for the new school were supplied by patricians, ordinary citizens, artists and the young people themselves.

Giambattista Piazzetta, first director of the Accademia

In its first years the Academy for Painting and Sculpture was directed by Giambattista Piazzetta. The Senate later granted the use of a second room where younger students copied the plasters while older artists copied the nude form in the other room. In April 1754 Piazzetta died and when lessons were to resume in October, the two rooms of the Fonteghetto remained closed for lack of funds.

The Academy re-opens

The Reformists entrusted the two maestri Zanchi and Morlaiter and the painter Antonio Fossali with the responsibility of re-opening the Academy using their own funds and on 4th December the school resumed its activity. In January 1756 a statute was formed and on 15th February Giambattista Tiepolo was appointed as president.

The Statute

It was established that the academic congregation should be formed by thirty-six members who were both painters and sculptors. From among these the four maestri to supervise the work done by the students were to be selected each year. The academicians were to be chosen from among the famous artists of Veneto and from among those students who were over 25 years old and who had exhibited a particularly interesting work of art. The school year would begin on 18th October , Saint Luke's Day and end on the Wednesday of Holy Week.

The Government subsidizes the Academy

After approval of the Statute the Government decided to subsidize the Academy with twenty ducats a month. From the year 1760 the school also remained open during the summer months and in 1768 began the teaching of perspective and architecture. During the period preceding the end of the Serenissima, life at the school ran smoothly. When the danger of domination by Napoleon increased in August 1796, the Academy, together with the "Scuole Grandi" and the "Collegio dei Pittori", offered all its funds to organize resistance. It was useless - Venice became little more than a prize to be exchanged among the great European powers.
The Academy under the Austrians

With the arrival of the Austrians, the name of the Academy changed firstly to "Regia Pubblica Accademia di Pittura" and then to "Regia Pubblica Accademia di Belle Arti". The Austrian Government did not take good care of the Institute which was forced to ask for loans even from the caretakers, in order to survive.

The Academy under the French

It was only in 1805, with the return of the French, that the Academy returned to life as Viceroy Napoleone Eugenio gave it the same organization as that of the Academies of Milan and Florence and each of the schools of architecture, engraving, painting and sculpture had its own owner. On 12th February 1807 the Institute became known as the "Accademia Reale di Belle Arti". The acadamecians were designated to choose a suitable centre.

The new centre

The Academy relocated from the Fonteghetto della Farina (small wheat warehouse) to a group of buildings which included :
- the convent of the Lateran Canons designed by Andrea Palladio in 1561
- the church of La Carità, reconstructed by Bartolemo Bon between 1441 and 1452
- the Scuola della Carità, the first of the great Venetian schools, founded in 1260.

The restructuration project

The restructuration project was led by the architect Giannantonio Selva. It was necessary to respect the original style of Palladio. The Gothic church was divided into two floors and adapted to house the school and exhibition rooms after the furnishings had been removed.

On 5th November 1807 the new centre was opened.

The Academy after its annexation to the Kingdom of Italy

After the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy in 1805, the school found new works of art to fill its galleries as all the public palazzi, forty parish churches and one hundred and seventy-six cultural buildings were closed and others destroyed. The artwork that came from these buildings, and that which was saved from being sold or dispersed found protection in the galleries. Much of the dispersed artwork was transferred to the Brera Academy in Milan, whereas other work decorated the residences of the viceroy. On 10th August 1817 the gallery was opened to the public and in the first room Titian's "the Assumption of the Virgin", now in the Frari church, was displayed in all its splendour.

The first collections

The first items to be included in the collection were:
- a number of works transferred from the old Academy
- some of the paintings from the Scuola della Carità
- from the Academy Abbot Farsetti a collection of plasters which had not been sold to Czar Paul I and had been acquired by the Austrian government in 1805. 

Besides the above there were: 

- Bonifacio de' Pitati's The Wealthy Epulon bought in 1812 from Viceroy Eugenio Beauharnais
- Three large altar pieces by Giovanni Bellini, Carpaccio and Basaiti were relocated from the San Giobbe church in 1815-16.
- Titian's Assumption was transferred from the Frari church.
- The collection of drawings by Giuseppe Bossi was acquired by abbot Luigi Celotti. This man not only saved many great works of art from being lost to other countries but also managed to buy many including Raphael's Sposalizio della Vergine. 

Pietro Edwards, new person in charge of preservation

Pietro Edwards, who in 1797 had collaborated with the French commissioners in the choice of the works of art to be given to Napoleon, was appointed to safeguard the works of art. He was in charge when Italy was under the Austrians and the Kingdom of Italy, and was unable to prevent many paintings from being transferred to Milan or the dispersion of important sets of works. He did, however, manage to retain Titian's John the Baptist in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore.

The restitution by the French

Fortunately some paintings were returned to Venice from France. Amongst these was Paolo Veronese's Christ in the House of Levi. Other paintings were removed from Venetian churches such as San Giobbe as a precautionary measure. The collection became larger owing to :
- private contributions
- bequests and donations
- the acquisition of significant works.
The patrimony of the Gallery was enriched considerably even though it presented itself as a collection of mainly Veneto art.


Private bequests

In 1816 the following works of art which had belonged to Girolamo Morlin were bequeathed to the Galleries:

- the triptychs by Alberegno and Jacobello da Fiore
- Lorenzo Veneziano's The annunciation
- Giambono's Il Paradiso

Canova's brother donated the great Theseus and Hercolese plasters.

Between 1833 and 1850 Felicita Renier donated many works which included:

- Piero della Francesca's Saint Jerome and Donor
- Giovanni Bellini's The Virgin and Child with two Saints and Madonna with Child with Saints Catherine and Magdalene..
- Cima da Conegliano's Cristo Deposto

In 1838 Girolamo Contarini donated his collection of 188 paintings. Amongst these were:

- Giovanni Bellini's The Virgin and Child (Madonna degli Alberetti) Standing Virgin and Child Blessing and Allegories .
- six scenes of Venetian life by Pietro Longhi.

The gallery becomes overcrowded

An enlargement plan was begun in 1819 and completed in 1856. Unfortunately it became necessary to modify the Palladian building. The plan was designed by Selva and carried out under the supervision of Francesco Lazzari. Two large halls to the left of the Palladian convent were constructed and four marble columns from the Misericordia School were inserted between them.
In 1829 the convent was enlarged and in 1830 the emblems on the façade of the Carità were replaced with those of the Accademia. Two windows were opened in the niches and a sculpture, Minerva seated upon the Adriatic Lion by Antonio Giacarelli, was placed at the top. This sculpture is now located in the Public Gardens. The large hall on the ground floor was divided so that the Gallery could have a separate entrance from that of the school.

In 1856 Emperor Franz Joseph acquired from the Manfrin Gallery:

- Nicolò di Pietro's Madonna with Child 
- Andrea Mantenga's Saint George
- Giorgione's Old Woman

In 1895 the galleries were radically reconfigured with the idea of putting together "works which had been done by artists of the same school, who had had the same influence and the same ideals and works which were of the same period". The works by artists of the nineteenth century were removed and a chronological order was established. The fifteenth century canvases were grouped in cycles and some such as The Saint Ursula Stories were regrouped into a polygonal hall to give the idea of continuity. The Institute became more and more like a picture gallery and the most was made of its aspect of being a collection of Venetian art.

Other works such as the following were added to the collection:

- Cosmé Tura's The Madonna
- Crivelli's Saints Peter and Paul
- Palma il Vecchio's la Sacra Conversazione 
- Paolo Veronese's Venice receives Homage from Hercules and Ceres.
- Two paintings by Tiepolo done when he was young.

The Accademia and the School become independent

The annexation to the Kingdom of Italy formalized from 1870 the separation of the School from the museum and was followed by a series of decrees. On 13th March 1882 the Galleries of the Accademia and the School became autonomous but the galleries did not acquire their definite independence from the School of the Accademia until March 1906.

New Acquisitions

From 1906 the Galleries enriched their collection with further important clever additions.
These were:

- Pier Maria Pennachi's Death of the Virgin
- Romanino's la Pietà
- Luca Giordano's The Crucifixion
- Bernardo Strozzi's Feast in the House of Simon. 
- Fra' Galgario's Portrait of Count Vailetti.
- Tiepolo's sketch with Esaltazione della Croce.

During the First World War the Galleries housed about 200 works from the San Salvi Convent in Florence. At the end of the war the Assumption was returned to the Frari church but other works of art, which had been taken by Austria in 1816 and 1838, were returned to the Galleries. Amongst these were:

- A reliquary from the fourteenth century which belonged to the Carità school
- The rock chrystal cross of the Saint Theodore school.

Between the two wars

Between 1921 and 1923 the museum was again remodelled in order to reconstruct an 18th century-like setting. 
In 1932 Giorgione's Tempesta was acquired

During the Second World War

During this period new additions were not made but the need was felt to adapt the museum to the transformations which were in progress both in Europe and America.

After the Second World War

Between 1945 and 1948 the first work was begun. The rooms were improved by removing all the decorations and gloomy colours. The paintings were sorted and appropriately positioned with care being taken to maintain a certain distance among them. Frames which were not original were removed. The paintings were hung at eye level grouping together those which were similar in style and sequence.

In 1949 Guido Gagnola donated a copy book of sketches which depicted some of Canaletto's "vedute" or views of Venice.

The restructuring of the halls continued throughout the nineteen fifties under the direction of Carlo Scarpa. The solutions this great architect adopted proved to be of great formal coherence and gave the configuration of the museum a stylistic rigour never before reached. Today the museum tries to maintain that structure, altering it as little as possible.

The nineteen seventies

In 1971 two pieces of art were bought. They were:

- Francesco Guardi's Fire at San Marcuola and
- Montagna's San Pietro e donatore

In 1979 Count Moncenigo sold Alessandro Longhi's large painting The Family of Procurator Luigi Pisani.

In 1981 Strozzi's Procator was acquired from palazzo Barbaro Curtis.

In 1983 the museum was able to obtain Jacopo Bassano's Adoration of the Shepherds and 30 works from those "exported" to Germany during the Second World War which had remained in the warehouses of Palazzo Pitti of Florence after their restitution, were reclaimed.

In 1987 two "putti" (little boys) and two allegorical figures showing Justice and Patience which had come from the ceiling decorated by Giorgio Vasari in 1542 in the Palazzo Corner on the Grand Canal were obtained.

In 1988 seven of the thirty paintings requested were returned from Palazzo Pitti. These were:

- an episode by Giannantonio Guardi of Jerusalem freed.
- Two small mytholical stories by Sebastiano Ricci
- Two "capricci" (or unconventional works) attributed to Canaletto.