The Correr Museum is one of the most important and representative museums of the city of Venice. It is located in the San Marco district, near Piazza San Marco, and is part of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia. It illustrates, in the various sections and in the varied and rich collections, the art, civilization and history of Venice.
The museum originates from the legacy of the Venetian nobleman
Teodoro Correr, who died in 1830. Over time, the collections grew and in
1887 it was necessary to transfer the collections from the original
headquarters in Palazzo Correr to the Fondaco dei Turchi.
In 1922
the definitive transfer took place in the current headquarters in the
Ala Napoleonica (or Fabbrica Nuova), in Piazza San Marco, and the
Procuratie Nuove.
The figure of Teodoro Correr
The museum
takes its name from Teodoro Correr, a Venetian nobleman, a great art
lover and collector who dedicated most of his life to collecting works
of art and all sorts of relics: paintings, ancient and modern statues,
illuminated manuscripts, documents, coins , medals, books, gems, cameos,
drawings and much more. Vast and rich, the collection took shape between
the last years of the Venetian Republic and the following years of
foreign domination.
The Venetian patrician explicitly declared
that his intention was to make his heritage usable as a museum: on his
death he donated all his collections to the city, together with the
family palace in which they were kept.
Enriched by new donations,
including the collections Molin, Zoppetti (with remarkable Canova
materials), Tironi (paintings, majolica, glass, bronzes), Cicogna,
Sagredo and others, the Correr collection was already transferred from
the house of Teodoro Correr in 1887 in the Santa Croce district, in the
San Zuan Degolà area, and located in the nearby Fondaco dei Turchi,
directly overlooking the Grand Canal. In any case, Correr's house
remained the exhibition venue for part of the collections. In 1922, the
Correr Museum was definitively moved to Piazza San Marco, while the
natural history collections remained at the Fondaco, which would later
merge into the nascent Natural History Museum.
The planning and the beginning of the construction of the Napoleonic
Wing, with the monumental façade and the portico below, date back to the
years in which Venice belonged to the Kingdom of Italy (1806-1814) under
the power of Napoleon, flanked by his stepson Eugenio di Beauharnais.
Until then this part of Piazza San Marco was occupied in the center
by the church of San Geminiano (of very ancient origin and rebuilt in
the mid-sixteenth century by Jacopo Sansovino) and by the extension
respectively of the Procuratie Vecchie and New, i.e. the two long
buildings that delimit it on the south and north sides.
The
building on the southern side, on the other hand, was designed in 1582
by Vincenzo Scamozzi to complete the impressive program of
reorganization of the square, undertaken by Sansovino in the
mid-sixteenth century and built between 1586 and 1596 to be completed by
Baldassarre Longhena around 1640.
At the behest of Napoleon, from
January 1807 this complex consisting of the Wing, which takes its name
from him, the Marciana Library and part of the Mint building and the
gardens, was used as a residence. In the spaces of the Procuratie Nuove
all the interiors were decorated in a neoclassical style.
From
1814 Venice passed to Austria and in the palace, which in the meantime
had become the prerogative of the Hapsburg crown, Emperor Francis II
stayed in 1815. In the mid-nineteenth century changes were made in the
ornaments and decorations typical of the Empire style to accommodate the
tastes of the court and in particular of the Empress Elisabeth of
Wittelsbach (known as Sissi), who stayed there several times.
After Venice was annexed to Italy in 1866, the palace passed to the
Savoy kings.
In 1919 Vittorio Emanuele III, king of Italy,
returned it to the state property so that it could be used by the
Ministry of Public Education. This is how from 1920 part of the area was
destined to the National Archaeological Museum, previously in Palazzo
Ducale, and from 1922 part to the Correr Museum.
The original nucleus
Teodoro Correr's collection had not been
formed following organic criteria; exposed to the public starting from
1836, only with the third of its directors, Vincenzo Lazari, is it
ordered according to a museological logic. Lazari divides the materials
by type/material, catalogs them, takes care of integrating the new
collections from bequests and donations of other Venetian patricians
into the heritage, implements purchases, solicits restorations and
structures the museum on the one hand as a study cabinet, on the another
with an exhibition itinerary of notable pieces, choosing – in his words
– “what was best in every single collection”. Unfortunately, Lazari is
also responsible for the destruction of documents and objects, in his
opinion not suited to the protection of the donor's image, but it is
thanks to his work that, in the second half of the century, the city
guides place the museum among the destinations obligation of cultured
visitors and scholars.
The birth of the Civic Museums of Venice
The continuous growth of the initial Correr collection due to new
bequests, donations and acquisitions, marks the unique history of the
Civic Museums of Venice, destined to be divided over time into a series
of detached sections, to form the current vast museum system of the
city.
Starting from 1897, the Municipality of Venice started the
municipal collection of modern art, in conjunction with the second
edition of the Biennale and in 1902 designated Ca' Pesaro as its
headquarters, a prestigious Baroque palace recently donated to the city
by the Duchess Felicita Bevilacqua. Masa. Here there will also be space
for the paintings of the second half of the 19th century that Pompeo
Molmenti bequeathed to the city in 1927.
Simultaneously with the
transfer, in 1922, of the collections to the Napoleonic Wing, the
Natural History Museum found space in the Fondaco dei Turchi. In 1923
the Glass Museum was also acquired with headquarters in Murano in
Palazzo Giustiniani: here the various glass collections will converge in
1932. In the meantime, in 1923, an agreement with the State entrusted
the management of Palazzo Ducale to the Municipality of Venice. The
donation to the city of Ca' Centanni, the birthplace of Carlo Goldoni,
dates back to 1931, while in 1932 the Municipality bought Ca' Rezzonico:
it will be destined as a museum of the Venetian eighteenth century and
therefore they will find space here, based on a project by Giulio
Lorenzetti and Nino Barbantini , in 1936, the eighteenth-century works
from the Correr collection, as well as other acquisitions. In 1945
Alvise Nicolò Mocenigo donated his home in San Stae to the city. Carlo
Goldoni's House, enriched by funds from the Theater Studies Center, was
set up and opened to the public in 1952, while, in 1956, Henriette
Fortuny left Mariano's house-atelier and his collections to the
Municipality. In 1975 the Mariano Fortuny Museum opened to the public
and six years later, in Burano, the Lace Museum was born in the ancient
School of Andriana Marcello. The Museum of Palazzo Mocenigo opened to
the public in 1985 and here, in the adjoining Study Center of the
History of Fabrics and Costumes, the textile collections of Teodoro
Correr come together. In the 1990s, the civic museum system was
completed by renewing and unifying the organizational structure of all
the venues under a single management.
First floor
Napoleonic Wing (Neoclassical Rooms and Canova's
Collection)
The Neoclassical Rooms are introduced by a sumptuous
ballroom which displays ornaments and decorations typical of the Empire
style. The design is due to Lorenzo Santi (1822), while the decoration
to Giuseppe Borsato (c. 1837). In the center of the ceiling, the fresco
with Peace surrounded by Virtues and Olympian Geniuses alludes to the
restoration undertaken by the Habsburgs following the Napoleonic
vicissitudes. In the following rooms there are the sculptural groups by
Antonio Canova with Orpheus and Eurydice and Daedalus and Icarus.
Sisi's apartment
The decoration dates back to the years of the
Habsburgs, in the period 1836-1838 in anticipation of the arrival of
Emperor Ferdinand I crowned king of Lombardy-Venetia in 1838 in Milan
and in the period 1856-1858, for the state visit of the Sovereigns
Francesco Giuseppe and Elisabeth, Sissi, between November 1856 and
January 1857. The Empress lived here again for another seven months,
between October 1861 and May 1862.
The apartment is organized in
different rooms: Weekly lunch room, Lombardy-Venetian throne room,
Audience room, Empress's bathroom, Empress's study room, Empress's
boudoir, Empress's bedroom , Antechamber of the apartments, Oval room
(Daily lunch room).
Wunderkammer
Nine rooms on the first floor
of the Correr Museum currently host a "collection of wonders" that
evokes the charm of a possible lagoon Wunderkammer. There are objects of
sacred art, paintings of Nordic origin, rarities, evidence of the
passion and taste for the Ancient among the Venetian patricians of the
sixteenth century.
Venetian civilization
Inside the Procuratie
Nuove the various aspects of Venetian Civilization are presented through
rooms displaying paintings, coins and artefacts of various kinds.
Room 8: Pisani bookshop
Room 09-10: judiciaries of the Venetian
Republic (portraits of doges, senators and procurators of San Marco).
Room 11: numismatic collection and historic flags
Room 12-13-14:
Venice and the sea, Battle of Lepanto, scientific instruments for
navigation, Arsenale.
Room 45-46-47: the Venetian festivities, the
last Bucintoro
Room 49-50: Venetian arts and crafts.
Second
floor (picture gallery)
A large part of the approximately 140
paintings exhibited in the Quadreria belonged to the collection of
Teodoro Correr. The paintings by Giovanni Bellini, Antonello da Messina,
Cosmé Tura and Vittore Carpaccio date back to the Correr bequest (1830).
Subsequently, the pictorial panorama of the picture gallery expanded
thanks to successive bequests, gifts and purchases from the
Municipality, which contributed to presenting the evolution of the
lagoon's artistic history in an exhaustive way.
The staging by
Carlo Scarpa
For the preparation of the Quadreria, on the second
floor of the Procuratie Nuove, the Direction of the Correr Museum, led
by Professor Giovanni Mariacher (1912-1994), turned to Carlo Scarpa
(1906-1978).
Between 1957 and 1960 Scarpa intervened by applying
functional criteria aimed at enhance the work of art and the
relationship it establishes with the visitor. For the panel paintings on
display, Scarpa selected simple walnut frames, he adopted light tones
for the walls and panels, and he enhanced natural lighting along the
way.
Department of Drawings and Prints
The Drawings and Prints Cabinet
of the Correr Museum is one of the most important institutions in the
world for the study of Venetian graphics. It conserves 8,000 ancient
drawings and over 40,000 engravings from the 15th to the 19th century.
The birth of the collection also dates back to 1830, thanks to the
testamentary bequest of Teodoro Correr; during the 19th and 20th
centuries the collection was enriched by acquisitions of a heterogeneous
nature.
Numismatic collection
The Correr Museum has an
important numismatic collection formed thanks to the initiative of
famous donors belonging to the most important Venetian patrician
families. It has more than 50,000 pieces. To the original nucleus
belonging to Teodoro Correr, other substantial collections were added
during the nineteenth century from Domenico Zoppetti (1850), Federico
Garofoli (1861), Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna (1865), Ascanio Molin (1886)
and from Count Nicolò Papadopoli (1922). The most significant bequest
(17,367 pieces) dates back to the latter, made up of various specimens
from the medieval and modern ages.
Among the different pieces
that make up the impressive collection we find notable points of
excellence from ancient Greece, from republican and imperial Rome and
from the medieval and modern Byzantine world. There is also a collection
of medals, a small lot of paper money and a nucleus of cones from the
Venice mint.
In the same room, the historic flags of the Republic
of Venice are placed on the walls, including the famous Contarina Flag.
Annexed to the Correr Museum, the Library was born from the donation
of Teodoro Correr in 1830. The vast collection of historical and
artistic memories of the Venetian nobleman also included an impressive
collection of parchments, codes, documents, engravings and rare
editions. Opened to the public six years later, in 1836, the collection
was enriched by the bequests of noble Venetian families and
distinguished scholars such as Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna who donated his
rich library to the Museum in 1865.
The handwritten and printed
testimonies conserved in the book collections which include 12,000
manuscripts, 750 incunabula, over 100,000 monographs and periodicals,
constitute the natural integration of the material on display in the
Museum: parchments and codices, often richly illuminated, noble
archives, incunabula and rare editions presses of Venetian typographies,
topographical maps of the lagoon and of the mainland and pilot books
offer a decisive contribution to the reconstruction of Venetian history.
Given the richness, uniqueness and value of this heritage, the
Correr Museum Library plays an important conservation role. Constantly
enriched through the systematic acquisition of sector publications, it
is also characterized as a specialist research and documentation
institute in the history of art and Venetian history, fulfilling the
most diverse tasks of research and professional updating of scholars,
museum conservatories, university professors and undergraduates of all
the world.
The activity of the Library still complies with the
dictates of Teodoro Correr, who intended to promote free access to the
collections: the ultimate goal of the Library is in fact to ensure
continuous access to the intellectual content of its collections.
The photographic archive, which is housed in the Correr Museum, holds two fonds with reproductions of works belonging to the Civic Museums of Venice (Fondo Museo) and with reproductions of various works, views of the city or works from museums outside the Fondazione dei Musei Civici (Miscellaneous Fund).
Jacopo de' Barbari
Perspective view of Venice, 1500 (print)
Woodcut matrix of the perspective view of Venice
John Bellini
Transfiguration, circa 1455-1460
Crucifixion (Bellini), circa
1455-1460
Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels (Pietà), c.1460
Madonna with Sleeping Child, circa 1460-1465
Victor Carpaccio
Man in the Red Cap (attr.), c.1490-1493
Two Venetian Ladies, circa
1490-1495
Antonello da Messina
Christ in Pieta Supported by
Three Angels, circa 1474-1476
Workshop of the Embriachis
Wedding casket from the Bottega degli Embriachi, from the mid-14th -
early 15th century.
Antonio Canova
Daedalus and Icarus
Orpheus and Eurydice
Jacobello del Fiore
Madonna with Child