Gallerie dell'Accademia

Lonely Planet review

Long the official arbiter of artistic taste in Venice, the 'Academy' is home to the finest in Venetian old masters, a veritable feast of High Renaissance, baroque and rococo. Although the city is dotted by works of the greats, this one-stop starburst represents a single, intense lesson in the greatness of Venetian high art from the 14th to 18th centuries.

In Room 2, Carpaccio's altarpiece, Crocifissione e Apoteosi dei 10,000 Martiri del Monte Ararat (Crucifixion and Apotheosis of the 10,000 Martyrs of Mt Ararat), is an extraordinary study in massacre and martyrdom. You stroll past works by the Bellinis, Mantegna and Cima da Conegliano until you are stopped in your tracks in Room 5 by rare contributions from Giorgione: La Tempesta (The Storm) and La Vecchia (The Old Woman). Both are centuries ahead of their time, the latter, in particular, presaging 19th-century portraiture. Major works adorn Room 10 and Paolo Veronese's Convito in Casa di Levi (Feast in the House of Levi) is one of the highlights. Also on display is one of Titian's last works, his disturbing Pietà . Carpaccio's extraordinary series of nine paintings recounting the life of Santa Orsola, in Room 21, is the collection's last high point.