Querini Stampalia Foundation

The Querini Stampalia Foundation occupies the sixteenth-century palazzo of the noble Querini Stampalia family on the island of Santa Maria Formosa in Venice. Giovanni Querini Stampalia bequeathed the palace, its library, and the family's art collection to the city in 1869, establishing a foundation whose mission was to keep the building open during the evenings when other cultural institutions were closed. That spirit of civic generosity still defines the place today.

The collection spans Venetian paintings from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, including works by Giovanni Bellini, Palma il Vecchio, and Gabriel Bella, whose series of scenes depicting Venetian public life is among the most vivid records of the city's social history. The ground floor was redesigned in the 1960s by Carlo Scarpa, whose signature use of water channels, mosaic, and raw materials turned the flood-prone piano terra into one of the finest examples of twentieth-century Italian architecture. An entry ticket gives access to the permanent collection, the Scarpa spaces, and the temporary exhibition programme.