John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art

This enormous and imposing Venetian Gothic and Italian Renaissance building (finished in 1929) boasts a first-rate collection of 17th-century, late-medieval, baroque and Renaissance French, Dutch and Spanish paintings and tapestries. Art works span 500 years, while the art museum library has a whopping 60,000 books spanning all art periods. The sculpture garden contains bronze replicas of ancient Greek and Roman figures.

You'll also find rotating modern exhibits and the Asolo Theater, a horseshoe-shaped, 300-seat theater that was originally built in the castle of Asolo, Italy, in 1798. After being dismantled in 1930 to make way for a movie theater, the theater was eventually bought by the museum from a Venetian antique dealer in 1950. Today, it's open for lectures, films and special events. Guided museum tours are offered on weekdays.