CÀ D'ORO, Franchetti Gallery - Main Floor

Go up the the Gothic staircase to reach the lobby on the main floor, where you'll find remarkable 14th and 15th century sculptures and the incredibly colorful Altarpiece of the Passion painted by Antonio Vivarini on wooden panels in several sections.

Soon after you'll find the work of art that is the museum's symbol: San Sebastian by Andrea Mantegna. Baron Franchetti especially loved this refined work that is crossed by a painful and melancholy vein. To display it as it deserved, he had a marble and gilded wood recess made specifically for it; all the subsequent productions of the Gallery followed this setup. Mantegna depicts the saint pierced by many thin arrows; if you closely observe his body, you'll notice how Renaissance painting progressed towards an almost scientific conquest of human anatomy.

The next two rooms are dedicated to bronze-working and include very refined works which are all connected to Ca' d'Oro's "privileged" century of the 1400s. You can admire a rich medal collection flanked by late-Gothic paintings, then a fascinating collection of Renaissance bronzes along with two beautiful paintings by Vittore Carpaccio, whose work you've perhaps already admired at the Accademia in the pictorial cycle of the Legend of St. Ursula....