VILLA DI ADRIANO (Tivoli)The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy's top art exhibitions:
BERGAMO - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (GAMeC): The Future of Futurism; the show will celebrate Futurism and the influence the movement had on 20th century art; it features 200 works by 120 artists, including paintings by Futurism's main protagonists, Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra', Gino Severini and Mario Sironi; from September 21 to February 24.FLORENCE - Boboli Garden: Gardens of the Ancient World; although Boboli is one of the first and finest examples of formal 17th-century gardens, the exhibit looks at much earlier concepts, from the Mesopotamian world through to Imperial Rome. Over 150 archaeological finds are on display, unearthed at the digs of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and on loan from Italian and foreign institutes around the world. The event, staged in the garden's Limonaia (Orangery) also features a series of reconstructions and models exploring the development of gardens from the 1st millennium BC through to Ancient Rome; until October 28.MILAN - Palazzo Reale: Botero, The Art Of Life; 160 works made by Colombian artist over the last ten years; until September 16.NAPLES - MADRE Contemporary Art Museum: Piero Manzoni, 200 works from bread-and-kaolin Achromes (non-colour) sculptures to fingerprinted eggs by the irreverent creator of 'Artist's Shit'; until September 24.POSSAGNO - Canova's Home: Cupid; Antonio Canova's celebrated portrayal of teenage Polish prince Prince Henryk Lubomirsky as the mythological god of love has returned to Italy after over two centuries to take part in celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the artist's birth. The marble masterpiece is the star of celebrations in Possagno near Treviso, where the sculptor was born and is buried. Visitors will be able to see the rest of the exhibition at the town's Gipsoteca Canoviana Museum. This part of the show is made up of 29 works devoted to love and beauty; until November 1.RAVENNA - Church of San Domenico: Mosaics of the East, Tiles on the Road to Damascus; Ravenna, the capital of Roman and Byzantine mosaics, has turned its hand to a fresh clutch of works, restoring a number of priceless designs on loan from Syrian museums. The mosaics were all created by artists during the late Roman period, when Syria was a province of the Roman Empire; until November 5.- Palazzo De Andre': Renato Guttuso, the Passion of Form, major retrospective marking 20th anniversary of artist's death; until September 11. ROCCHETTA LIGURE (Alessandria) - Palazzo Spinola: Images from the Floating World; starting in the 17th century, the widespread dissemination of prints spread the new 'floating, fleeting' culture of 'ukiyoe' throughout Japan. 17th-century Japanese author Asai Ryoi explained the term as meaning "living only for the moment" which, in his view, meant singing songs, drinking sake, forgetting reality and not worrying about the surrounding misery of the world. The show brings together woodprints from this period; until September 9.ROME - Colosseum: Eros; this show gathers a series of outstanding artworks which seek to shed light on the familiar yet enigmatic figure of Eros. Organizers say it offers an opportunity to look at the liberty and spontaneity with which the Greeks lived their sexuality - homosexual relations included. The show also looks at how the image of Eros evolved over the centuries, gradually 'declining' into the decorative putto - the podgy, winged baby Cupid of Italian Renaissance art; until September 18.- National Gallery of Modern Art: Symbolism: From Moreau to Gauguin to Klimt; some 100 works by leading exponents of this highly influential modern art movement. The aim of the show is to produce an effective synthesis with works by around 60 major artists that can also appeal to the wider public; until September 16.- Colosseum: In Scaena, 70 ancient Roman theatrical pieces illustrating 900 years of the Roman stage; October 3 to February 18. - Villa Borghese: 50 works by Antonio Canova including 16 large marble pieces; the Borghese's own celebrated Pauline Bonaparte sculpture will be joined by an array of masterpieces including The Three Graces from the Hermitage, the Reclining Naiad from New York's Metropolitan Museum, The Sleeping Nymph from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Love and Psyche from the Louvre; from October 12 to February 3.TIVOLI - Hadrian's Villa: the show celebrates a magnificent ancient Roman statue of Emperor Hadrian's wife, Vibia Sabina. The statue is one of 13 looted antiquities that the Boston Museum of Fine Arts recently returned to Italy.One part of the show is devoted to the furnishings, art and architectural features of Hadrian's Villa, the largest and richest Imperial Roman villa ever built; until November 4.TRENTO - Castello del Buonconsiglio: Gold of the Riders of the Steppes, 400 objects fashioned for nomadic war leaders from the first millennium BC to the Golden Horde in the 13th century, found in tombs in present-day Ukraine; until November 4.TRIESTE - Salone degli Incanti: Major show on sculptor Marcello Mascherini (1906-1983), comparing him to Italian and European contemporaries like Arturo Marini, Emilio Greco, Lynn Chadwick and Kenneth Armitage; until October 14.TURIN - Museum of Antiquities: Ancient Afghan Treasures, over 200 artefacts from four major archaeological sites dating back between 1,700 and 3,200 years. Until September 23.VENICE - Palazzo Ducale: Venice And Islam, 300 paintings, glassworks, ceramics, metal objects and precious fabrics showing influences of the two worlds between ninth and 18th centuries; until November
