The earliest recorded instance of a public…
1583 CE
The earliest recorded instance of a public body receiving a private art collection occurs in the sixteenth century with the bequests of the brothers Domenico Cardinal Grimani and Antonio Grimani to the Venetian republic in 1523, to be supplemented in 1583 with a further bequest from the family.
The motivation seems to have been both to promote scholarship and to grace the seat of government.