Fondazione Querini Stampalia
A Wonder Booster
I envisioned a courageous, welcoming, generous and curious Fondazione with an open-source approach that thrives on a collaborative spirit, one that has the strength to take calculated risks, exploiting its great experience. An institution that knows how to win people’s trust and make every visit memorable.
We are ready for the torsion: the move will make our bones crack, it will herald the freshness we can bestow; we aim to crackle, sparkle and ignite the gaze of those who come along and who, like us, will wonder at the world and our existence, as we search for epiphanies that offer new perspectives. Wonder is inspiration, the beginning of philosophy, art and science. It is desire that is sublimated in contemplation or ignited in that restless curiosity that prompts us to explore. Wonder is the source and origin, the perception that the labyrinth we attempt to escape from is instead the interconnected form of all that coexists. We want to follow its movements, dissolve its ordinary meanings and inhabit new ones. And if curiosity is a desire for knowledge, wonder is a desire for meaning lived in the joyful awareness that it will never be completely satisfied, a never-ending quest that does not plunge us into doubt but makes it possible to create even deeper roots to travel anchored in other certainties and not entangled in sterile logical contradictions.
Cristiana Collu
Director
Visite guidate in Querini
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur sit amet eros blandit, hendrerit elit et, mattis purus. Vivamus commodo suscipit tellus et pellentesque.
organizza la tua visita
The 16th-century façade of Palazzo Querini with ‘The Material of the Ornament’,
a neon installation by Joseph Kosuth, 1997
“‘The Querini has the power to make your head spin. It is not a library. It is not a museum. It is a vortex.
Paintings and antique books. Architecture from the past and present. Contemporary art. Archive funds and photographic collections. All this is layered in a multidimensional, non-Euclidean hyper-object. The centuries and the staircases, the cubic metres and the stories collide.
A spatial-temporal capsule with a limitless capacity to inspire.’ “
Tiziano Scarpa, writer
Querini in versi. Cinque poeti esplorano la Fondazione Querini Stampalia, 2020
An aspiration that goes beyond time
In his last will and testament of 1868, Giovanni Querini Stampalia founded an institution with the aim of ‘promoting the cult of good studies and useful subjects’. This remains the Fondazione’s mission: to be a place of research and learning, of meeting and relating, of personal growth and the spread of knowledge.
When it all began
‘My library, gallery, medal collection and art objects housed in my palace at San Zaccaria will be of public use’.
The year is 1868. Count Giovanni’s last will and testament signals the birth of the Fondazione, which was established the following year, in 1869: a visionary project that looked to the future.
Read more
Life of Count Giovanni
History of the Querini family
History of the Palazzo
History of the Library
History of the House Museum
History of the architectural interventions
Our network
The Querini Stampalia is the among the oldest cultural foundations in Italy.
Its importance is acknowledged by a vast network of public and private entities: the State, the Veneto Regional Government and Venice City Council above all, but also universities, national and international organisations, associations and companies.
The Fondazione organises projects and activities with these entities, which are growing in the number, variety and wealth of relationships.
