Accademia Tadini

History

The Tadini Academy of Fine Arts has its roots in the interest and collections of Count Luigi Tadini of Verona (1745-1829). At the turn of the 18th-century, the count envisioned housing his collections in a proper setting. The family residence in Palazzo Barboglio facing the present Piazza Garibaldi proved too small; thus adjacent to this site, on the road linking Lovere and Bergamo, along the lake, he had his grandson, Sebastiano Salimbeni, a self-trained architect design the present palace. Work began in 1820 with the chapel, built to house the Stele Tadini (1819-1821), a work of Antonio Canova, and dedicated to his former friend, Faustino Tadini, son of the count who had died in 1799 at the age of 25. Faustino had published a book on the early work of Canova in 1796. By 1826, the Gallery building was complete. The interior decorations, both stucco and fresco, were designed and completed by Luigi Dell'Era. By 1828, the museum was open to the public. He intended the collections and decoration to be aids for the curriculum of the school of design. …