Museo Archeologico Nazionale

The National Archaeology Museum, one of the oldest public museums in Italy and in Europe, is home to an important collection of Greek and Roman sculptures, bronze objects and sculptures, ceramics, jewellery, coins, and a collection of Egyptian, Babylonian and Assyrian antiquities. Its origins date back to the legacy of Domenico Grimani and a donation by Giovanni Grimani who, respectively in 1523 and in 1587, bequeathed most of their collections of antiquities to the Serenissima Republic of Venice. These collections formed the nucleus of the Statuario Pubblico, a typical expression of Renaissance taste, established in 1596 by Frederick Contarini in the Anteroom of the Library of San Marco. Enriched by further donations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Museum, with the Library, was transferred in 1812 by Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, to the Doge’s Palace. 
The current National Archaeology Museum was created after World War I in the Royal Palace, donated by King Vittorio Emanuele III, and installed in its current location on the first floor of the Procuratie Nuove. The exhibition curated by Carlo Anti between 1923 and 1926, was expanded between 1949 and 1954 by Bruna Forlati, following the acquisition of Teodoro Correr’s archaeological collections in 1939.
The collection grew in 1961 as a result of the post-war agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia, with the acquisition of part of the collections of ceramics, glass and gems from the Museum of St. Donatus in Zadar. Finally, in 1982, Giancarlo Ligabue donated part of his collection of prehistoric bronze objects to the Museum.