Mar

The Art Museum of the City of Ravenna is located inside the monumental complex of the Loggetta Lombardesca, a sixteenth-century monastery of the adjacent Abbey of Santa Maria in Porto. The only thing still remaining of the original structure is the rear façade, overlooking the public gardens.

In the elegant double-row loggia, the five arches are supported by "Lombardesque" capitals – according to a type found in other 16th-century buildings in Ravenna - which are the work of Campionese and Lombard stone-cutters and stonemasons.

In the four-sided portico of the monumental complex, the Canons of Porto heraldic emblem is encountered repeatedly. It is represented by a stylized castle with three turrets, along with the construction dates: 1503 - 1518.

The wrought iron railings, at the end of the lower loggia, were built in 1907 by Vittore Sangiorgi. The original entrance door, which was dismantled during demolition work in 1885 and remounted at the National Museum, is now walled-in between the Loggetta Lombardesca and the apse of the church. During the 1970's the Academy of Fine Arts and the Municipal Art Gallery were transferred here - both founded 150 years earlier and until then located at the suppressed monastery of Classe, now the Classense Library - and the Ornithological and Natural Sciences Museum.

With the acquisition, in 1999, of the spaces on the main floor and ground floor, previously occupied by the Academy of Fine Arts and the Ornithological and Natural Sciences Museum, the foundations were laid for recovering new areas. These were reorganized for exhibition activities and for giving the art gallery's collections more breathing space. In June 2002, the City's Art Museum became an Institution