Grimani Palace Museum

The Palazzo Grimani Museum was originally the residence of Antonio Grimani (doge from 1521 to 1523), the current building is the result of architectural interventions carried out between 1532 and 1569 on commission from the heirs, Vittore, procurator of San Marco, and John, patriarch of Aquileia.

Above all the latter intervened directly in the design, perhaps using suggestions from Sanmicheli (to whom the entire building was attributed in the past), but above all referring to the treatise by Sebastiano Serlio. The result is that of a very valuable and admirable architecture that blends elements of the Venetian and Tuscan-Roman traditions : among others, the suggestive environment of the grandstand with the pyramidal skylight is particularly striking. The fusion between different artistic cultures can also be seen in the marvelous pictorial decorations of the staircase and the rooms on the first floor, where painters such as Federico Zuccari, Francesco Salviati, Giovanni da Udine, Lambert Sustris and Camillo Mantovano worked.

The palace housed the art and archeology collections of Cardinal Domenico Grimani and Giovanni, patriarch of Aquileia, who were also donors of substantial parts of their collections to the Republic, which formed the basis for the birth of the public statuary of the Serenissima . The historic-artistic aspect of the monument does nothing but reflect the taste and cultural policy of the Grimani family who gambled their fortune - social, economic, political - right between the two fundamental centers of Venice and Rome.

This makes Palazzo Grimani unique in the Venetian context , comparable in cultural importance, while distinguishing between private and public commissions, to the works of Jacopo Sansovino for the area of Piazza San Marco, for the realization of which, moreover, the contribution of this family.