Ca’ Pesaro: a Museum for Modern and Oriental Art

Overlooking the Grand Canal, Ca’ Pesaro houses both the International Modern Art Gallery and the Oriental Art Museum. A huge and majestic Baroque marble palace located in the sestiere of Santa Croce and positioned between Palazzo Correggio and Palazzo Coccina Giunti Foscarini Giovannelli, the building was originally designed by Baldassarre Longhena in the 17th century and was completed at the beginning of the 18th.

An order of enormous pillars creates the impression of double loggias, making of this palace a colossal one. Ca’ Pesaro is part of the eleven museums run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia system. The Gallery of Modern Art comprises ten rooms, each one dedicated to a specific topic or historic time. Masterpieces by Kandinsky, Mirò, Boccioni, Morandi, de Chirico, Fattori, and de Nittis decorate the walls of most of the rooms, while the Central Hall is dedicated to works from the first Venice Biennale up to the 1950s. The last room is devoted to Contemporary Art, with temporary exhibitions by young artists happening very often.

The upper floor hosts the Oriental Art Museum. Venice has played throughout history a crucial role in economic trade and cultural exchange, especially with the Far East, and has been a bridge between the West and oriental cultures. More than 30,000 objects from Japan, Indonesia, and China are housed on this floor, taking the visitor back to the time when Venice was a key player in the economic world scene.

It is interesting to notice that Ca’ Pesaro also played, during the first two decades of the XXth century, a revolutionary role in the Italian artistic scene, having been a launch pad for young rebellious artists that wanted to break with tradition.