Explorer Venise

Fondazione Prada uses Ca' Corner della Regina, a palace on the Grand Canal in Santa Croce, as its Venice venue for temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. The palace stands where Caterina Cornaro, later Queen of Cyprus, was born in 1454; it was rebuilt in 1724 by Domenico Rossi and has frescoes of her life on the main floor.

Ca' Pesaro is a Baroque marble palace on the Grand Canal, designed by Baldassare Longhena in the mid-17th century and completed by Gian Antonio Gaspari in 1710. It houses the International Gallery of Modern Art, built up largely from works bought at the early Venice Biennales, and on its top floor the Museum of Oriental Art.

The Natural History Museum of Venice occupies the Fondaco dei Turchi, a 13th-century Veneto-Byzantine palace on the Grand Canal that served as the trading house of Turkish merchants from 1621 to 1838. A museum since 1923, it shows fossils, including the skeleton of the dinosaur Ouranosaurus, whale skeletons and zoological and ethnographic collections.

The Fortuny Museum occupies Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei, a 15th-century Gothic palace on Campo San Beneto where the Spanish-born artist Mariano Fortuny set up his studio in 1898 and later his home and textile workshop. Its rooms show his paintings, printed silks and velvets, lamps and stage designs; the palace was given to the city in 1956.

The House of Carlo Goldoni is the Gothic Palazzo Centani in San Polo, where the playwright Carlo Goldoni was born in 1707. A courtyard with a 15th-century open staircase and a carved well-head leads to a small museum on his life and theatre, with a reconstructed 18th-century puppet theatre, and to a library of theatre studies.

The Da Vinci Interactive Museum fills the rooms of the Scoletta di San Rocco, built in 1494 as the first seat of the Confraternity of San Rocco beside the later Scuola Grande. Visitors can work full-size models of Leonardo da Vinci's machines, from war machines to flying machines, with explanations in several languages.

The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is the seat of a lay confraternity founded in 1478, in a marble Renaissance building in the San Polo district completed in 1560. Its halls are covered with paintings by Tintoretto and his workshop, made between 1564 and 1587, including the large Crucifixion in the Sala dell'Albergo.

The Jewish Museum of Venice was set up in 1954 by the Jewish Community beside the two oldest synagogues on Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, in the Ghetto established in 1516. Its exhibition rooms are closed for a restoration that will double their size; meanwhile the ticket office runs guided visits to the Ghetto's historic synagogues.

Palazzo Grassi is a classical palace on the Grand Canal beside Campo San Samuele, designed by Giorgio Massari for the Grassi family and built between 1748 and 1772. Bought by François Pinault in 2005 and refitted by Tadao Ando, it holds temporary exhibitions of contemporary art from the Pinault Collection.

The Museum of Music is housed in the deconsecrated church of San Maurizio, rebuilt between 1795 and 1806 to a Neoclassical design by Giannantonio Selva, the architect of La Fenice. Set up by the collector Artemio Versari and the ensemble Interpreti Veneziani, it shows string instruments by makers such as Amati, Guadagnini and Goffriller, around Antonio Vivaldi and his time.

The Museo Correr is the civic museum of Venetian art and history on St Mark's Square, in the Napoleonic Wing and the Procuratie Nuove. It grew from the collection Teodoro Correr left to the city in 1830, and shows sculptures by Antonio Canova, the Neoclassical rooms of the former royal palace, and paintings by Giovanni Bellini and Carpaccio.

Ca' Rezzonico is a palazzo on the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro, begun by Baldassare Longhena in 1649 for the Bon family and completed by Giorgio Massari for the Rezzonico. It houses the Museum of 18th-century Venice, with furnished rooms, ceiling frescoes by Giambattista Tiepolo and paintings by Canaletto, Francesco Guardi and Pietro Longhi.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a museum of 20th-century European and American art in Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an 18th-century palace on the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro where Peggy Guggenheim lived for three decades. It shows Cubist, Surrealist and abstract expressionist works by artists such as Picasso, Dalí, Miró and Pollock.

The Gallerie dell'Accademia is Venice's main gallery of art from the 14th to the 18th century, housed in the former church, convent and Scuola Grande of Santa Maria della Carità in Dorsoduro. It shows Venetian painting by Giovanni Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese; Leonardo's Vitruvian Man is also in the collection.

Punta della Dogana is the former sea customs house at the tip of Dorsoduro, between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal, built in 1678–1682 by Giuseppe Benoni and crowned by a golden globe with a figure of Fortune. Restored by Tadao Ando in 2008–2009, it shows contemporary art from the Pinault Collection.

The Naval History Museum occupies a 15th-century granary of the Venetian Republic beside the Arsenale. Founded after the First World War and owned by the Italian Navy, it shows ship models, weapons and naval relics on five floors; the ticket also covers the Ships Pavilion in the Arsenale's former oar workshop, where historic boats are displayed.

The Murano Glass Museum traces the history of glassmaking from antiquity to the present, with the focus on Murano's own glass. Founded in 1861 by the abbot Vincenzo Zanetti, it occupies the Gothic Palazzo Giustinian, once the residence of the bishops of Torcello, and has been one of the Venice civic museums since 1923.

The Burano Lace Museum is in the former palace of the Podestà of Torcello on Piazza Galuppi, the main square of the island of Burano, which housed the Burano lace school from 1872 to 1970. Founded in 1978 and run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, it traces Venetian and lagoon lace from its origins to the present through pieces, drawings and documents.

The Museo Provinciale di Torcello occupies two medieval buildings on the main square of Torcello, beside the island's cathedral. Founded in 1872, it shows archaeological finds from the lagoon and the mainland in the Palazzo dell'Archivio, and early Christian and medieval works from the islands in the Palazzo del Consiglio.