Venetian Museums

The bell tower collapse in 1902 at 9.52am and it was built again "where and how it was"  (this had been the will of the population of Venice).
The tower succumbed to the weaknesses caused by recent structural changes and fell down.
The collapse was anticipated and the area cleared, so there were no human casualties.
Even the "Loggetta del Sansovino" was destroyed and rebuilt in 1904.
Bell tower at 99m is the tallest structure in the city and is an important occasion to admire Venice and the view of the Dolomities (during the clear days). We suggest to go up when the hours change, just in time to hear "well" the bells.

Curiosity: In the tower collapse the only life lost was that of an incautious cat called Melampyge.

Opening hours: Daily from 9,30 to 18,30.
Ticket: €.4/2
Phone: 041-5224064.

The Palazzo Ducale was far more than the residence of the Doge - it was the home of all of Venice's governing councils, its law courts, a sizable number of its civil servants and even its prisons.
Architecturally, the build, is a mix of style called Islamicized Gothic and Classical.
 It has been rebuild many times. Founded in the beginning of the ninth century was destroyed by the fire of 976.
 It was rebuild with the materials imported from the colonies of the Venetian Republic.
It's possible to see the famous paintings by Tintoretto, Tiziano and Veronese and take a tour of the ancient prisons where Casanova "lived" for some years before escaping.

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Opening hours: Daily 9.00-17.30.
Ticket: €10 and €4 for children. The same ticket is valid for Museo Correr as well.
Phone: 041-5224951
 

The intinerari Segreti
It is a ninety-minute guided tour through the warren of offices and passageways that show how the day a day administration worked. 
You'll see the cell from which Casanova escaped in 1775 with the assistance of Father Balbi and all the secret passageways that interlocks many of the public rooms of the buildings.

Opening hours: Daily there are 2 guided tour at 10.00 and 12.00 (you have to reserve)
Ticket: €10 .
Phone: 041-5224951

San Marco is the most exotic of Europe's cathedrals. It's certainly the symbol of Venice, with more than two square kilometers of beautiful mosaics, it contains inestimable treasures as the "Pala d'Oro", masterpiece of Gothic-Byzantine goldsmith's art, precious glasses, amphoras, cups and the liturgical vestments. Recently it's been done the restoration of the marvellous multicoloured marbles inside the church.

All over Venice you see images of the lion of Saint Mark holding a book on which is carved the text "Pax tipi, Marce evangelista meus. Hic requiescet corpus tuum" ("Peace be with you Mark, My Evangelist. Here shall your body rest"). These supposedly are the words with which Saint Mark was greeted by an angel who appeared to him on the night he took shelter in the lagoon on his way back to Rome.

Opening hours: Working days, 10.00-17.00; Saturday and Sunday 13.00/17.30.
Ticket: To visit the Pala d'Oro € 3; to the treasure € 7.
Phone: 041-5225697

This museums keeps the original copy of the bronze horses that one time was situated outside of the basilica of S.Marco allegedly to protect them from the risks of atmospheric pollution.
Moreover  there is the "blanket" used to cover the Pala d'oro, made by Paolo Veneziano in the XIV century, during the working days.

Opening hours: Daily from 10.00 to 17.00.
Ticket: € 3.
Phone: 041-5225697.

Ca' D'Oro (House of gold) is the showpiece of domestic Gothic architecture in Venice and home of one of the city's most varied art collections, the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti.
Inside it's possible to admire masterpieces by Mantegna, Diana and Carpaccio. Besides there are many paintings of Flemish school and what remain of the decorations that one time made beautiful the facades of the buildings near the "Canal Grande" (main channel of Venice).
Downstairs, in the backyard it's possible to see the well by Bartolomeo Da Bon, a masterpiece of the 1427 maded with red marble of Verona.
It was built for procurator Mario Contarini between 1425 and 1440, the palace takes its name from its Canal Grande facade.

Opening hours: Daily: 9.00/14.00.
Ticket: €.4; free entrance for young people under 18 and adults over 60 years and for foreign visitors under 12 years.
Phone: 041-5238790.

Seventeenth century Palazzo Mocenigo is the Center of history of the Fabric and Costume, offer several dresses and accessories of marvellous tailoring.
Wallking inside, don't lose the beautiful marbles that embellish this building where once used to celebrate the life the sublime english poet Lord Byron.

Opening hours: 8.30/13.30 from Tuesday to Thursday.
Ticket: free of charge
Phone: 041-721798
 

Naval Historycal Museum keeps a copy of this marvelous venice ship and some gondolas and many other treasures of the ancient seafaring Republics.

During the Serenissima Republic, in the day of Sensa (Ascension) the cruising ship of Venetian Navy ( il Bucintoro) escorted the Doge (head of Republic) in the lagoon celebrating the rite of the wedding among the City and the Sea. 

Opening hours: 8.30/13.30 only on working days.
Ticket: €.3
Phone: 041-5200276.
 

The entrance to the Museo Archelogico is also in the loggia of the Libreria.
The core of the museum is Cardinal Domenico Grimani's bequest of Greek and Roman sculpture, which was given to the city in 1523.

Opening hours: Daily from 9.00 to14.00.
Ticket: € 3.
Phone: 041-5225978.
 

The Museo di Storia Naturale is right by the church, in the Fondaco dei Turchi. Top-billing exhibits are the remains of a 37-foot longancestor of the crocodile and an Ouranosaurus, both dug up in the Sahara in 1973.

Opening hours:Tues-Sun from 9am to 1pm
Ticket: €.4
Phone:
 

It was bequeathed to the city at the end of the last century bu Duchessa Felicita' Bevilacqua La Massa. La Masa, who stipulated in her will that it should provide studio and exhibition space for impoverished young artists.
A really important collection of oriental art (Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian) owned by Enrico di Borbone who collected all this works traveling in the eastern countries.
The Japanese section shines in particular way for the presence of blades.

Opening hours: 9.00/17.00, closed on Monday.
Ticket: € 4.
Phone: 041-5238790

A Napoleonic decree of 1807 moved the Accademia to its present site and instituted its galleries of Venetian paintings, a stock drawn largely from the city's suppressed churches and convents.
Accademy of Venice is one of the most prestigious of Italy, keeps paintings of Venetian school since the Middle Age to masters of the Renaissance with masterpieces by Bellini, Tiziano, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Veronese... until the painters of the eighteenth century, the Tiepolo, pastels by Rosalba Carriera and the inside scenes by Longhi.
Only Tuesday and for a small period of time (15-16 ; 16,30-17,30) Accademia gives the possibility to visit the deposits at the last floor of the monastery builded by Palladio.

Opening hours: Closed on 25 of December, first of January and first of May. Open from 9.00 to 19.00 ( Sunday and Monday it closes at 14.00).
Ticket: €.9 (free entrance for under 18's and adults over 60's).
Phone: 041-713487.
 

In few rooms it's possible to admire the large production of Greek, Cretan and regional icons from the fourteenth century to eighteenth century.

Opening hours: Working days: 9.00/13.00 - 14.00/17.00.
Ticket: € 4.
Phone: 041-5226581

Them Museo Diocesiano d'Arte Sacra is a permanent collection with a range of religious artifacts and paintings gathered from churches that have closedown or entrusted their possessions to the safety of the museum.

Opening hours:10,30/12,30, closed on Sunday.
Ticket: Free entrance.
Phone: 041-5229166

The museum's collection consistsmainly of silverware, sacred objects, textiles and furnitures.
Besides, it's possible to visit 3 of the 5 synagogue situated among the "Campo of Ghetto Nuovo" and "Campo of Ghetto Vecchio".
In the northern corner of the campo is a reminder of the ultimate suffering of the Jewish people: a series of seven reliefs by Arbit Blatas, with a poem by Andre' Tranc, commemorating the 200 Venetian Jews deported to the death camps in 1943 and 1944.

 
Opening hours: 10/16,30 closed on Saturday and during Jewish holiday.
Ticket: €3 (only Museum), €7 (Museum and Synagogue).
Phone: 041-715359.