The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno ("Academy of the Arts of Drawing") is an

academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

of artists in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

, Italy. Founded as Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno ("Academy and Company of the Arts of Drawing") on 13 January 1563 by

Cosimo I de' Medici Cosimo I de' Medici (12 June 1519 – 21 April 1574) was the second Duke of Florence from 1537 until 1569, when he became the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, a title he held until his death. Life Rise to power Cosimo was born in Florence on 12 ...

, under the influence of

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...

, it was made up of two parts: the Company was a kind of

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

for all working artists, while the Academy was for more eminent artistic personalities of Cosimo's court, and supervised artistic production in

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

. Artists including Michelangelo Buonarroti, Lazzaro Donati, Francesco da Sangallo, Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Giorgio Vasari,

Bartolomeo Ammannati Bartolomeo Ammannati (18 June 151113 April 1592) was an Italian architect and sculptor, born at Settignano, near Florence. He studied under Baccio Bandinelli and Jacopo Sansovino (assisting on the design of the Library of St. Mark's, the ''Bibli ...

, and Giambologna were members. Most members of the Accademia were male; Artemisia Gentileschi was the first woman to be admitted. Its declared purposes are the promotion and diffusion of the arts, and the protection and conservation of cultural heritage worldwide. It organises conferences, concerts, book presentations and exhibitions, and elects noted artists from all over the world to honorary membership.

History

The first Accademia delle Arti del Disegno

The first Accademia delle Arti del Disegno was founded by

on 13 January 1563, under the influence of

. It was initially named the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno, or "academy and company of the arts of drawing", and was made up of two parts: the Company was a kind of guild for all working artists, while the Academy was for more eminent artistic personalities of Cosimo’s court, and supervised artistic production in Tuscany. It was later called the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno. At first, the Academy met in the cloisters of the Santissima Annunziata. In 1784 Pietro Leopoldo,

Grand Duke of Tuscany The rulers of Tuscany varied over time, sometimes being margraves, the rulers of handfuls of border counties and sometimes the heads of the most important family of the region. Margraves of Tuscany, 812–1197 House of Boniface :These were origin ...

, combined all the schools of drawing in Florence into one institution, the new

Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze ("academy of fine arts of Florence") is an instructional art academy in Florence, in Tuscany, in central Italy. It was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1563, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. ...

, or academy of fine arts. The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno was thus suppressed and transformed in the collegio dei professori dell'Accademia.

The present Accademia delle Arti del Disegno

In the re-organisation following the

Unification of Italy The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

, the Collegio dei Professori dell'Accademia delle Arti del Disegno was again separated from the Regia Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in 1873; it became fully independent of it in 1937, and was at the same time divided into three schools or classes, of architecture, of painting and of sculpture and engraving. Sculpture and painting became separate classes under a new statute of 1953. Since 1971 the Accademia has occupied Palazzo dell'Arte dei Beccai, in via Orsanmichele. The current statute of the organisation was published by decree of the President of the Republic of Italy, and is dated 17 May 1978.

Organisation and membership

Since the statute of 1978 the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno has been divided into five classes: painting, sculpture, architecture, history of art and humanities and sciences. There are four classes of membership: emeritus, ordinary, correspondent and honorary. Notable members of the Accademia include

Sandro Chia Sandro Chia (born 20 April 1946) is an Italian painter and sculptor. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was, with Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, and Mimmo Paladino, a principal member of the Italian Neo-Expressionist mov ...

, Hans Erni and Anselm Kiefer in painting;

Arnaldo Pomodoro Arnaldo Pomodoro (born 23 June 1926) is an Italian sculptor. He was born in Morciano, Romagna, and lives and works in Milan. His brother, Giò Pomodoro (1930–2002) was also a sculptor. Pomodoro designed a controversial fiberglass crucifix fo ...

, Giuliano Vangi and Dani Karavan in sculpture;

Massimo Carmassi Massimo Carmassi (born 5 June 1943 in San Giuliano Terme near Pisa) is an Italian architect. Biography Massimo Carmassi graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Florence in 1970. In 1974, he established the Project Office of the Commun ...

and Paolo Portoghesi in architecture;

David Whitehouse David Bryn Whitehouse, FSA, FRGS (15 October 194117 February 2013) was a British archaeologist and senior scholar of the Corning Museum of Glass. He was director of the British School at Rome between 1974 and 1984. Early life Whitehouse was born ...

in history of art; and Salvatore Accardo and

Carlo Ginzburg Carlo Ginzburg (; born April 15, 1939) is an Italian historian and proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for ''Il formaggio e i vermi'' (1976, English title: '' The Cheese and the Worms''), which examined the beliefs of an Ita ...

in humanities and sciences.

Honorary membership

The Accademia awards the title of Accademico d'Onore, or honorary member, to those it considers notable in culture and the arts. It lists 138 such honorary members. Among them are

Andrea Branzi Andrea Branzi (, born November 30, 1938) is a Florence-born Italian architect and designer. He currently lives and works in Milan and was a professor and chairman of the School of Interior Design at the Polytechnic University of Milan until 2009. ...

, Daniel Buren, Fernando Caruncho, Andrea Claudio Galluzzo, Herman Hertzberger, Michael Hirst,

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...

Gina Lollobrigida Luigia "Gina" Lollobrigida (born 4 July 1927) is an Italian actress, photojournalist, and politician. She was one of the highest-profile European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s, a period in which she was an international sex symbol. As o ...

Pierre Rosenberg Pierre Max Rosenberg (born 13 April 1936) is a French art historian, curator, and professor. Rosenberg is the honorary president a director of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, and since 1995, he has held the 23rd seat of the Académie Française. H ...

, Edoardo Vesentini, Alessandro Vezzosi, Louis Waldman and the Pritzker Prize winners

Robert Venturi Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major architectural figures of the twentieth century. Together with h ...

and

Renzo Piano Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City ( ...

. Past Accademici d'Onore include Giulio Andreotti, Alberto Ronchey, the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winner

Rita Levi-Montalcini Rita Levi-Montalcini (, ; 22 April 1909 – 30 December 2012) was an Italian Nobel laureate, honored for her work in neurobiology. She was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with colleague Stanley Cohen for th ...

and

Jørn Utzon Jørn Oberg Utzon, , Hon. FAIA (; 9 April 191829 November 2008) was a Danish architect. He was most notable for designing the Sydney Opera House in Australia, completed in 1973. When it was declared a World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, Utzon ...

History

The first Accademia delle Arti del Disegno

The present Accademia delle Arti del Disegno

Organisation and membership

Honorary membership

References

Further reading