“Bad luck if you need to use the stairlift for wheelchair access. It’s out of order.”
Courtesy Apollo magazine.
Cracked walls, crumbling ceilings, inadequate lighting, holes in the marble floors patched with cardboard … One of Italy’s most remarkable museums ,Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia, according to Apollo magazine, is in terrible condition; and the photographs are heartbreaking.
“Carpaccio’s Legend of St. Ursula cycle, which has recently been restored after a fundraising campaign led by Save Venice, hangs below netting that’s been installed to catch falling slabs of the ceiling.”
Courtesy Apollo magazine.
The article notes: “[T]he historic galleries on the first floor of the museum are visibly falling to pieces. And the problem is not simply that the disintegrating fabric and other flaws detract from the visitor’s appreciation of the great works on display; or that funding shortages seem to have bred a general malaise. The trouble is so severe – and the steps to remedy it seemingly so casual – that one fears for the safety of the paintings themselves.”
