Galleria dell’Accademia – Florence

The complex that now houses the Galleria dell’Accademia was founded in the fourteenth century as the Hospital of San Matteo and the convent of San Niccolò from Cafaggio. Following the suppressions and expropriations, the places became the seat of the new Academy of Fine Arts. Thanks to the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, many religious works, including those of Perugino, were transferred here, as useful study material for students to practice following the great examples of the past as well as plaster models and reproductions of originals preserved in different places around the city, realized by great masters such as Lorenzo Bartolini and Luigi Pampaloni.

The building underwent an incisive change when it was chosen as place to house the monumental David by Michelangelo, which until that moment had been subject to the weather in an open place such as Piazza della Signoria: Emidio de Fabris was called to design a monumental tribune, which represents the architectural fulcrum of the entire complex even today. Besides the sculptures of the great Buonarroti and paintings from the Middle Ages to the modern age, the Galleria dell’Accademia today also preserves a great collection of musical instruments.