This is a preview of the content in our Venice Art & Culture app. Get the app to:
  • Read offline
  • Access all content
  • Use the in-app Map to find sites, and add custom locations (your hotel...)
  • Build a list of your own favourites
  • Search the contents with full-text search functionality
  • ... and more!
iOS App Store Google Play

Museo Storico Navale

Naval History Museum

Museum of naval History at the Arsenal, Venice, Metropolitan City of Venice, Region of Veneto, Italy

If any citizen of the Serenissima worth his salt could come back to contemporary Venice, the first place he’d visit might be this charmingly old-fashioned Museo Storico Navale (MUNAV) housed since 1958 in a 15th-century granary. Without the right stuff displayed here, there would have been no St Mark’s, no doges, no Bellinis or Titians, and indeed no Venice. And as a bonus there are explanations in English.

Ground Floor

Italian Human torpedo exposed the Naval Museum in Venice

On the ground floor you can learn all about Italy’s one outstanding success in the Second World War: the ‘nautical pigs’ or manned torpedoes, invented by Prince Valerio Borghese. Not as kamikaze as they sound, these were operated by two divers, who would guide the weapon to its target, set the explosive and swim away.

Read the full content in the app
iOS App Store Google Play

Top Sights

Castello

Museums and Galleries

Text © Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls

Images by Bonty, Flak88, Zairon