Ringling Museum of Art

The John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, is the official State Art Museum of Florida and one of the finest comprehensive museum complexes in the American South, set on a 66-acre Sarasota Bay waterfront estate. The complex encompasses five distinct attractions: the Art Museum with 21 galleries of European paintings and decorative arts; the Circus Museum documenting the Ringling Brothers circus empire; the historic Ca' d'Zan mansion; the Mable Ringling Rose Garden; and the Historic Asolo Theater, an 18th-century Italian court theater transported stone by stone from Asolo, Italy. The Art Museum's core collection was assembled by circus magnate John Ringling in the 1920s and 1930s when European art prices were depressed following World War One, allowing him to acquire significant works at accessible prices. The collection's greatest strength lies in large-scale Baroque paintings, with major works by Peter Paul Rubens — including his monumental series of cartoons for the Triumph of the Eucharist tapestry cycle — alongside important paintings by Velázquez, Tintoretto, and Veronese. The Ca' d'Zan mansion, Venetian Gothic in style with extraordinary tilework and furnishings, is among the finest examples of Florida's Gilded Age architecture and can be explored on self-guided or guided tours. The Circus Museum provides an unexpectedly engaging counterpoint to the fine art galleries, housing elaborate miniature circus recreations, vintage wagons, costumes, and the memorabilia of one of American entertainment history's great enterprises. The bayfront grounds, with ancient banyan trees, formal gardens, and water views, are themselves a destination worth lingering in.