Ca’ Pesaro Museum

Built in the second half of the seventeenth century for the Pesaro family by the Baldassarre Longhena, the greatest Venetian baroque architect, Ca’ Pesaro houses the National Museum of Modern Art. Started being built in 1659 , it was finished decades after Longhena’s death in 1710 by Gian Antonio Gaspari.

Sumptuous and imposing, but harmonious and organic in its structure, the palace was constantly enriched, during the long years of its construction, by an equally important process of interior decoration. The palace still conserves some of the fresco and oil decorations of the ceiling, while  the rest had been completely dispersed by 1830, the year of the death of the last Pesaro family member, who auctioned most of the collection in London. It is worth mentioning the fresco work by Gian Battista Tiepolo which, in 1935, was transferred to Ca’ Rezzonico, the Museum of the 18th Century Venice.

The last owner of Ca’ Pesaro, the Duchess Felicita Bevilacqua La Masa, bequeathed the Palace to Venice Town Council in 1898 and it officially became the Modern Art Museum in 1902. Since the 1960s, the Museum has made a shift privileging italian modern art.