This institution was the result of the decision taken by Count Giacomo Carrara (1714-1796) to create a school of fine arts with adjoining picture gallery in accordance with the Enlightenment idea of spreading culture through society.On his death;the Carrara Academy grew so quickly that new neoclassical premises were designed by Simone Elia and completed in 1810.The 19th century saw only one important purchase;namely the collection of the Venetian patrician Orsetti (1804);and the two major bequests (Lochis in 1866 and Morelli in 1891);but also the only great dispersal of works;by public auction in 1835.The academy was well established in its role as a municipal museum when it underwent its first modern reorganization;based no longer on the collections of illustrious connoisseurs for which it provided a setting but on chronological and regional criteria (Corrado Ricci;1912 and 1930).The new arrangement of 1955 (G.A.Dell'Acqua and Fernanda Wittgens) remained in place until the ongoing closure for renovation work (2008).The collections now comprise about 1;800 paintings;3;000 drawings;8;000 prints and 80 sculptures (plus the 46 important works of the Federico Zeri bequest of 1998) as well as works of the minor arts;furniture;a library with many volumes once owned by Giacomo Carrara;and materials from the academy (paintings;drawings;cartoons and plaster sculptures).