In 1587 he donated the collection of sculptures and gems to the Serenissima: after his death the first ones were placed in the anti-room of the Marciana Library and today they are the founding nucleus of the National Archaeological Museum of Venice.

Opened to the public on December 20, 2008, after a long restoration, it is currently a museum belonging to the Veneto Museum Pole[6] The long restoration by the Superintendence included the interior decorations, including: the Camerino di Callisto, with stucco by Giovanni da Udine; the Camerino di Apollo, with frescoes by Francesco Salviati and Giovanni da Udine; the Sala del Doge Antonio, decorated with stucco and polychrome marbles; the Sala a Fogliami by Camillo Mantovano, with the ceiling entirely covered with fruit trees, flowers and animals; and the Tribune that once housed more than a hundred pieces of the archaeological collection.

In the Sala di Psiche is an antique copy of Salviati's Adoration of Psyche, originally lodged in the middle of the wooden ceiling that was dismembered in the mid-nineteenth century.

The collection of classical sculptures in the palace after four centuries" "Domus Grimani - The Doge's Room" "Archinto" by Georg Baselitz (all until November 27, 2022) The marble entrance portal leads into the large courtyard.

The original medieval building, an L-shape plan, was restructured and redecorated between 1537 and 1540 by brothers Vettore and Giovanni Grimani, according to a style inspired by the ancient Roman domus.

Between 1563 and 1565 the barrel vault of the staircase leading to the portego or passing salon of the main floor was sumptuously decorated by a young Federico Zuccari, who had trained in Rome, with allegorical frescoes referring to the virtues of his client Giovanni, completed by grotesques and stucco reliefs with mythological creatures.

It owes its name to a luxurious decoration of the ceiling with trees, plants and flowers: a forest inhabited by numerous animals, frequently with predatory attitudes, and rich in symbolic meanings.

In the lunettes surmounted by grotesques, complex figurations in the form of a rebus possibly allude to the long and troubled heresy trial suffered by the patriarch Giovanni Grimani.

The story unfolds on the ceiling in five squares with a gold background, starting from the first - on the wall opposite the windows -, where the sleeping nymph is loved by Jupiter, up to the epilogue - in the middle of the ceiling-, in which Callisto and his son Arcas are turned into constellations.

In this room, the artist who worked with Raphael offers an essay of his great ability recreating animals, still lifes and twelve putti, symbolizing the months of the year, accompanied by four referable zodiacal signs to the seasons.

It is dominated by the splendid fireplace surmounted by colored marble and large stucco decorations, where niches and shelves housed other archaeological pieces from the Grimani collection.

The elegance of the faces portrayed in profile, the quality of the garlands and the fruits and the amazing monster with the gaping mouth, visible in the center, suggest the genius and inventive extravagance of Federico Zuccari.

It celebrates the temporary return of many masterpieces of Greek, Roman and Renaissance art, belonging to Giovanni Grimani's collection and their relocation to the rooms where they found until the patriarch's death.

In addition to the sculptures from the National Archaeological Museum of Venice, there are also exhibited some 16th-century furnishings from other Venetian museums and private collections, with the intention of recreating an aristocratic 16th century residence: one of the most noteworthy works, a tapestry of Medici manufacture based on a design by Francesco Salviati, two wooden cabinets, bronzes by Jacopo Sansovino and Tiziano Aspetti, two bronze firedogs by Girolamo Campagna and a table inlaid with ancient marbles and lapis lazuli belonged to the Grimani family.