The Albertinum was built between 1884 and 1887 by extending a former armoury, or arsenal, that had been constructed between 1559 and 1563 at the same location. The new building was designed by the regional master builder Carl Adolf Canzler in the Renaissance Revival style to house the royal Collection of Antique and Modern Sculptures. The building was named after the Saxonian King Albert who reigned at the time. In 1889, the Sculpture Collection was moved in and has since remained there.
Besides the Sculpture Collection, the Albertinum has housed the New Masters Gallery (Galerie Neue Meister) in the upper rooms since 1965. It was also the temporary postwar home of the Numismatic Cabinet (Münzkabinett) and the Green Vault (Grünes Gewölbe) until the exhibitions were moved to the rebuilt Dresden Castle in 2002 and 2004.
The floods of 2002 necessitated renovating the Albertinum and building a new flood-proof depository. After closing in 2006, the building was finally reopened on June 20, 2010 as a 'house of the modern' with the New Masters Gallery and the Sculpture Collection.
The Albertinum houses the New Masters Gallery (Galerie Neue Meister) and the Sculpture Collection (Skulpturensammlung). The holdings of the two museums, with paintings ranging from Caspar David Friedrich to Ludwig Richterand sculptures from Auguste Rodin to the 21st century, are displayed on three floors in exhibition halls with a modern look.
References:The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, near Rome, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance garden and especially for its profusion of fountains: the extraordinary system contains fifty-one fountains and nymphaeums, 398 spouts, 364 water jets, 64 waterfalls, and 220 basins, fed by 875 meters of canals, channels and cascades, and all working entirely by the force of gravity, without pumps. It is now an Italian state museum, and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Tivoli had been a popular summer residence since ancient Roman times due to its altitude, cooler temperatures and its proximity to the Villa Hadriana, the summer residence of the Emperor Hadrian I.
The Villa was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este (1509-1572), second son of Alfonso I d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara and grandson of Pope Alexander VI, along with Lucrezia Borgia.