The Museum of Palazzo Venezia preserves one of the most important model terracotta collection dated between the end of the XVI^th and the half of the XVIII^th century: there are more than three hundred sculptures in terracotta, papier-mache or plaster used by artists as preliminary studies and, sometimes, submitted to buyers for their final project approval.

A considerable number of masterpieces belonged to the Cavaceppi and Gorga collections. The scupltor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (1716-1799), friend of J. J. Winckelmann and of the cardinal Alessandro Albani, was an appreciated restorer of classical antiquities: his workshop become a real museum and after his death several works of art were sold by Vincenzo Pacetti to the marquis Giovanni Torlonia (1800). Afterwards a lot of Cavaceppi sculptures were moved and then identified in the collection of Evangelista Gorga (1865-1957), an Italian lyric singer. The tenor was picked by Giacomo Puccini to play the role of "Rodolfo" in the première of the Bohème, directed by Arturo Toscanini on February 1^st, 1896 in the Royal Theater of Turin. After just four years he decided to give up the lyric career for his passions: gambling and collecting. About 150.000 object ware gathered by Gorga (musical instruments and sheets, archeological finds, fossils, art and craft tools, surgical instruments, toys, terracottas, books, ect.) and then gifted to Italian Government in 1948 to solve a huge debt accrued during many years.

Another important legacy was endowed to the museum in 1947 by Margaret Nicod Sussman, who gifted some "bozzetti" in honor of her brother-in-law, the Archeologist Ludwig Pollak.

Among the Renaissance terracottas there are two panels with The miracles of Saint Mark by Jacopo Sansovino for the Cathedral of Venice; a copy of the Michelangelo Night by Niccolò Tribolo and the Head of Seneca, attributed to Guido Reni, that introduces the XVII^th century.

The Baroque scuplture is the largest terracotta section of the museum and includes masterpieces by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Angel with the Supersciption), Alessandro Algardi (Saint Philip Neri with the Angel), Ercole Ferrata (Triton), Antonio Raggi (Christ in Limbo), Melchiorre Caffà (Saint Eustache with the Lion). The late Baroque style and the XVIII^th century are represented by works of art by French scupltors like Michel Maille (King David with the harp played by an angel), Jean-Baptiste Theodon (Joseph gives wheat to Egyptians) and Pierre Legros (Tomb of the Pope Innocent XI).