Alternative Title: art academy
Academy of art, in the visual arts, institution established primarily for the instruction of artists but often endowed with other functions, most significantly that of providing a place of exhibition for students and mature artists accepted as members. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, a series of short-lived “academies” that had little to do with artistic training were founded in various parts of Italy. The most famous of these was the Accademia of Leonardo da Vinci (established in Milan
c. 1490), which seems to have been simply a social gathering of amateurs meeting to discuss the theory and practice of art. The first true academy for instruction, the Accademia del Disegno (“Academy of Design”), was established in 1563 in Florence by the grand dukeCosimo I de’ Medici at the instigation of the painter and art historian Giorgio Vasari. The two nominal heads of the institution were Cosimo himself and Michelangelo. In contrast