History & Mission

Mission

Save Venice Inc. is the leading American nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the artistic heritage of Venice, Italy. Since 1971, Save Venice has worked tirelessly to preserve, protect, and promote the art and culture of Venice and has funded the conservation of over 2,000 individual artworks. In 2015, Save Venice established the Rosand Library & Study Center in Venice, creating a nexus for the research of Venetian art, history, and conservation. Save Venice also provides grants for fellowships, exhibitions, and publications to advance Venetian scholarship and conservation.

Conservation projects are selected on the basis of artistic merit, historical importance, and urgency of need by the Save Venice Board of Directors and its Projects Committee of renowned experts in the fields of art, history, and conservation. Save Venice works in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Save Venice has numerous restorations underway throughout the city, carried out by carefully selected restorers who are supervised by the Venetian authorities and Save Venice staff. Save Venice’s oversight assures that donations are tracked at each step of the restoration process and are used wisely. Conservation treatments are made possible with support from individuals, foundations, and corporations that believe in a shared responsibility to preserve the world’s irreplaceable artistic and cultural treasures found in Venice.

History

Save Venice was established in response to the serious damage caused by the November 1966 floods – the highest tide in Venice during the last century. More than thirty international committees were formed under the administrative umbrella of UNESCO to preserve the cultural heritage of Venice. Originally known as the Venice Committee of the International Fund for Monuments, Save Venice became an independent, charitable organization in 1971.

Today based in New York City with an office in Venice and chapters in Boston and California, Save Venice was founded by an extraordinary trio from Massachusetts: John McAndrew (1904–78), Professor of Art History at Wellesley College; his wife, Betty Bartlett McAndrew (1906–86); and Sydney J. Freedberg (1914–97), Chairman of the Department of Art at Harvard and Chief Curator Emeritus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Their successors, now spread across the United States and the globe, have made Save Venice the largest and most active committee conserving the cultural patrimony of Venice.