The Accademia di Belle Arti ("Academy of Fine Arts") is an art academy in Florence, Italy and it is now the operative branch of the still existing Accademia delle Arti del Disegno ("Academy of the Arts of Drawing") that was the first academy of drawing in Europe. The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (initially named Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno – Arts of Drawing Academy and Company – as it was divided into two different operative branches) was founded in 1563 by Cosimo I de' Medici under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. At first the Academy met in the cloisters of the Church of the Santissima Annunziata. While the Company was a kind of corporation which every working artist in Tuscan should join, the Academy was constituted only by the most eminent artistic personalities of Cosimo’s court, and had the task of supervising the whole artistic production of the medicean state. The extraordinary contribution of academics including Michelangelo Buonarroti, Francesco da Sangallo, Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Giorgio Vasari, Bartolomeo Ammannati, Giambologna, increased the prestige of this institution.