A major exhibition in Venice with works by great masters on the conception of the body in the Renaissance

From April 4 to July 27, 2025, the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice will host the major exhibition Modern Bodies. The Construction of the Body in Renaissance Venice. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Dürer, Giorgione, which aims to investigate the central role of the human body in art, science and culture in Renaissance Venice. Curated by Guido Beltramini, Francesca Borgo and Giulio Manieri Elia, the exhibition explores how the body was conceived as an object of scientific study, an object of desire and a means of self-expression. Indeed, the Renaissance marks a turning point in which the body is no longer just a biological reality, but becomes a cultural construction shaped by medical knowledge, social conventions and art.

The exhibition brings together extraordinary works, some of them exhibited for the first time in Italy, including paintings, sculptures and drawings from prestigious museum institutions and international and national collections. Among the artists on display are Leonardo da Vinci-with the famous Vitruvian Man-Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. Alongside the works of art, scientific instruments, anatomical models, books, clothing, miniatures and everyday objects will be presented, offering a comprehensive overview of the perception and representation of the body in the Renaissance.

An exhibition itinerary in three sections

The exhibition itinerary is divided into three major thematic areas:

The Body Revealed: Getting to Know

This section focuses on the discovery of the human body as an object of medical and scientific study, which finds in Padua and Venice two centers of European significance for research and publishing. For the occasion, after six years, Leonardo’sVitruvian Man, one of the most iconic works of the Gallerie dell’Accademia and of the world’s cultural heritage, will again be on public display. The famous drawing will be compared, on the one hand, with an ancient Greek metrological relief, delving into the concept of “measure” and “ideal,” and on the other hand with Dürer’sSelf-Portrait of the Naked Body, of astonishing realism, from the Klassik Stiftung Weimar and exhibited for the first time in Italy.

The Naked Body: Desiring

The second section examines the representation of the body as an object of gaze and desire. On the one hand, the female nude, embodied by the figure of the reclining Venus, an image destined to become an iconographic model to this day. On the other, the male body, through the figures of biblical saints and heroes portrayed in the old-fashioned way. The theme of desire is also investigated through objects of domestic life and portraits of young brides, in which the gesture of partially covering her breasts suggests a veiled eroticism, according to a widespread iconographic tradition in the Veneto area. Emblematic in this regard is Titian’s painting The Lovers, from the Royal Collection in Windsor: the gesture of the man grazing the woman’s breast has recently been interpreted as a symbol of the marriage bond. Other works on display include the only known copy of Pietro Aretino’s Lustful Sonnets (private collection) and a female bonnet from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The constructed body: representing oneself

The last section explores the body as a space of cultural representation. Clothes, surgical treatises, cosmetic and body care accessories testify to the desire of Renaissance men and women to adhere to precise aesthetic and social conventions. Among the most fascinating objects is a very rare 16th-century casket, a kind of Renaissance make-up box containing mirrors, perfumes and personal care items, on loan from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The exhibition also addresses the theme of overcoming the body itself through armor and mechanical prosthetics, first used in the Renaissance to replace limbs lost in battle. The body thus becomes a field of experimentation and metamorphosis.

A topical reflection on universal themes

The exhibition aims to offer a journey through the representation of the body in the early modern age, highlighting issues that, while belonging to the past, are extraordinarily topical: the nature and future of humanity, sexuality and reproduction, beauty and aging, the boundaries of the human, and identity.

"Modern Bodies is an exhibition about us, through the magnifying glass of the Renaissance, when we began to ’unveil’ the body, bringing scientific investigation under the skin, and at the same time to ’veil’ it, moving away from what we are as a biological datum, to make of ourselves a construction, an act acted out," the curators explain.
“The exhibition is developed by relating the exceptional works on loan to some of the museum’s masterpieces, enhancing the permanent collection and the Veneto figurative and artistic tradition,” says Giulio Manieri Elia, director of the Gallerie dell’Accademia and curator of the exhibition.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog published by Marsilio Arte, with essays signed by renowned international and Italian scholars.

The exhibition is promoted and organized by the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice in collaboration with Marsilio Arte, with the contribution of the Veneto Region and the support of the Association of International Private Committees for the Preservation of Venice. Contributors include Scuola Piccola Zattere, Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte, Venetian Heritage, Save Venice, the Austrian Committee Venedig Lebt, and the Association of Friends of Venetian Museums and Monuments.

A major exhibition in Venice with works by great masters on the conception of the body in the Renaissance

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