The Ateneo Veneto of Sciences, Literature and Arts was established by a Napoleonic Decree on January 12, 1812 and is one of the oldest cultural institutions still active today.

Its premises in Campo San Fantin, has a lengthy history. It was built to first host the two confraternities of San Girolamo and Santa Maria della Consolazione which during the mid 1400’s merged together as they shared the same social welfare objectives, namely, to provide spiritual support to those sentenced to death by hanging, from which the name, “Scuola dei Picai (the hanged)” or a “milder death” was derived.

Destroyed in a fire in 1562, the premises underwent massive restructuring with the interventions by important architects, painters and sculptors (Alessandro Vittoria, Tintoretto, Palma il Giovane, Veronese, Leonardo Corona) and towards the end of the 1500’s and early 1600’s, it was completed to its present layout.

With the fall of the Venetian Republic and the subsequent suppression of the “scuole”, the Scuola di San Fantin ceased to exist from the beginning of the 1800’s. The building was later used by the Società Veneta di Medicina (Veneto Medical Society) who together with the Accademia dei Filareti and the Accademia Veneta Letteraria (Veneto Literary Academy) formed the new Ateneo Veneto.

In 1878, the Ateneo Veneto was founded as an moral entity with its own statute, subject to modifications and when required, updated improvements over the years.

From 1997, it becomes a non-profit organisation.

During its two centuries of history in Venice, numerous well known personalities of the artistic, political and cultural spheres such as Daniele Manin, Niccolò Tommaseo, Pietro Paleocapa, Giacinto Gallina, Alessandro Manzoni, Giosuè Carducci, Antonio Fogazzaro, Ferenc Molnàr, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Diego Valeri, Albino Luciani, Mario Rigoni Stern, Andrea Zanzotto, Luigi Meneghello, Carlo Rubbia, were members of the Ateneo Veneto.