If you an art history bluff and love the circus than put a visit to Sarasota, Florida on your bucket list. Touring the John and Mable Ringling Complex took us two full days and it was amazing. There are four wonderful venues well worth spending time at on thirteen lovely acres. Ca d’Zan was the Ringling’s winter residence. This dazzling palatial mansion of circus tycoon John Ringling is a tribute to the American dream and reflects the splendor and romance of Italy. It is one of the last of the Gilded Age mansions built in America in the 1920s.
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| Marble tile patio at Ca d'Zan residence |
There are 56 incredible rooms filled with art and original furnishings from around the world. With its Venetian Gothic architecture, the mansion is a combination of the grandeur of Venice’s Doge’s Palace combined with the grace of Ca d’Oro with Sarasota Bay serving as the Grand Canal.
The expansive marble tile patio overlooking Sarasota Bay with steps down to the waters edge for gondolas and yachting in days of the past leave one with a sense of grandeur.
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| The living room |
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| John Ringling's gilded beds imported from Italy |
Stops on the property at the Big Show Circus Museum and Tibbals Learning Center building consisted of displays of gilded circus parade wagons, calliope music pipes, costumes, posters, photos, and a variety of circus memorabilia. The miniature circus handcrafted over fifty years by Howard Tibbals is said to be the world’s largest. It encompasses 4000 square feet depicting the entire scenes of the various aspects of the Ringling Circus down to the minutest details from set up, tents, animals, performers, support systems, wagons, rail cars, etc.
In the Circus Museum sits the famous canon that launched performers into the air, the Ringling’s private railway car the Wisconsin for travel, circus posters, and more ornate circus wagons. The only thing missing was live animals, music, and real life performers for when the circus would actual come to town.
A tram cart shuttled us across the complex grounds to the Ringling Museum of Art which is internationally recognized for its vast collection. The building is modeled after a Venetian palace with its grand courtyard of architectural columns. Ringling had purchased each statue and column at a different time and place in Europe and had them shipped to Sarasota for the building.
John Ringling had invested much of his $200 million fortune in the area in the 1920’s making Sarasota Florida’s cultural center of affluence. His legacy
is best seen in his winter residence house and in his splendid collection of European art. His love of Italy, and his fine collection of Baroque paintings are the cornerstone of his collection in the magnificent art museum.
The highlight of the Museum of Art was the Rubens Gallery. Peter Paul Rubens was the world renown 17th century Flemish painter in the Netherlands who create numerous masterpieces. Many of Rubens original works were purchased at auction by John Ringling.
A docent gave the two of us a delightful private tour for an hour through several of the art galleries with exemplary collections of Renaissance and Baroque paintings and Cypriot antiquities. The Asian exhibits of ceramics and carvings were exquisite. You can say we were indeed at this point a long way from the swampland of the Florida Everglades.
Stops on the property at the Big Show Circus Museum and Tibbals Learning Center building consisted of displays of gilded circus parade wagons, calliope music pipes, costumes, posters, photos, and a variety of circus memorabilia. The miniature circus handcrafted over fifty years by Howard Tibbals is said to be the world’s largest. It encompasses 4000 square feet depicting the entire scenes of the various aspects of the Ringling Circus down to the minutest details from set up, tents, animals, performers, support systems, wagons, rail cars, etc. 
A tram cart shuttled us across the complex grounds to the Ringling Museum of Art which is internationally recognized for its vast collection. The building is modeled after a Venetian palace with its grand courtyard of architectural columns. Ringling had purchased each statue and column at a different time and place in Europe and had them shipped to Sarasota for the building.
