The first Accademia The first Accademia delle Arti del Disegno was founded by
Cosimo I de' Medici on 13 January 1563, under the influence of
Giorgio Vasari. It was initially named the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno, or "academy and company of the arts of drawing", and was made up of two parts: the company was a kind of guild for all working artists, while the academy was for more eminent artistic personalities of Cosimo's court, and supervised artistic production in Tuscany. It was later called the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno. At first, the academy met in the cloisters of the
Santissima Annunziata. In 1784
Pietro Leopoldo,
Grand Duke of Tuscany, combined all the schools of drawing in Florence into one institution, the new
Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, or academy of fine arts. The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno was thus suppressed and transformed into the .
The modern Accademia In the re-organisation following the
Unification of Italy, the Collegio dei Professori dell'Accademia delle Arti del Disegno was again separated from the Regia Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in 1873; it became fully independent of it in 1937, and was at the same time divided into three schools or classes, of architecture, of painting, and of sculpture and engraving. Sculpture and painting became separate classes under a new statute of 1953. Since 1971 the Accademia has occupied
Palazzo dell'Arte dei Beccai, in . The present statute of the organisation was published by decree of the President of the Republic of Italy, and is dated 17 May 1978. == Organisation and membership ==