Museo Correr Site Features

The museum occupies the Napoleonic Wing and the Procuratie Nuove, the long arcaded building closing the west end of Piazza San Marco, opposite St. Mark's Basilica. The Procuratie Nuove was designed in the late 16th century by Vincenzo Scamozzi, continuing the arcade style Jacopo Sansovino had established next door at the Procuratie Vecchie decades earlier.

Napoleon's own addition, the Ala Napoleonica, replaced the small church of San Geminiano with a grand ballroom, giving the complex its present continuous run of state rooms along the square.

The museum's Quadreria (picture gallery) holds early Venetian paintings, including Vittore Carpaccio's well-known portrait of two Venetian women on a balcony, alongside works by Giovanni Bellini and other Venetian masters.

A dedicated gallery displays Neoclassical sculpture by Antonio Canova, and separate rooms cover the political history of the Republic of Venice through doge's regalia, coinage, arms, and ceremonial objects.

The museum closes the western end of Piazza San Marco, occupying the Ala Napoleonica and the upper floors of the Procuratie Nuove -- so it looks straight down the length of the square at St Mark's Basilica at the far end.

That is the reverse of the usual Venetian arrangement. Most of the city's museums are palaces facing water; this one is a range of state offices facing a public square, and its best views are of the piazza's own geometry rather than of a canal.

The building is continuous with its neighbours rather than free-standing. Internally it connects to the Biblioteca Marciana and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, so a visit crosses between three institutions without going outside -- a useful thing on a square that floods early and often, since Piazza San Marco is the lowest ground in Venice.