Art and Travel

(ANSA) - Milan, November 19 - A painting by Italian Baroque master Guercino is to go on sale in Milan next week and is expected to fetch at least 500,000 euros, Christie's said on Thursday.

The painting, one of a pair meant to be hung together, shows the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt Diana.

The other painting, now missing, depicted her lover, the shepherd Endymion.

Guercino mentioned the two oil paintings in his record book, saying they had been sold to the Roman Count Fabio Carandini in 1658.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 18 - Pope Benedict XVI turned into an impromptu art history professor on Wednesday, lecturing faithful on the importance of Europe's Medieval Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals.

Addressing the crowd at his weekly general audience, the German pontiff likened the cathedrals to "stone Bibles" which through sculptures and paintings illustrating episodes from the Gospel offer Christians a "privileged route" to draw closer to God.

(ANSA) - Padua, November 18 - Graffiti writers who deface public buildings should be doing amends by being forced to replicate their scribblings on the walls of their homes, the mayor of a town near Padua said on Wednesday.

Vigonza Mayor Nunzio Tacchetto told the local daily Il Gazzettino he is preparing an ordinance which will not only slap hefty fines but will see graffiti writers doing penance by spending a month reprising their creations inside their homes.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 18 - The Vatican is commemorating the extraordinary life of a 16th-century Italian mathematician and missionary who settled in China, with a new exhibition marking 400 years since his death.

The event at the Vatican Museum pays tribute to Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), a Jesuit priest and academic who spent most of his adult life in China and eventually became a member of the court of Ming Emperor Wanli.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 17 - Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary expects his budget airline next year will surpass Italian airline Alitalia in terms of passengers carried and become the leading carrier in Italy.

Speaking Tuesday at the presentation of Ryanair's new flights from Rome's Ciampino airport to Krakow, Poland, and Seville, Spain - which will begin in March 2010 - O'Leary said that his airline this year "increased the number of passengers (in Italy) it carried by 22% to 18 million, while Alitalia lost 23% of its passengers and also carried 18 million".

(ANSA) - Florence, November 16 - Leonardo da Vinci painted a nude version of the Mona Lisa, an Italian art expert says.

In a new book, Florentine art expert and Leonardo specialist Renzo Manetti said there was strong evidence for the never-discovered work because of alleged imitations.

Manetti argues that, like other Renaissance artists inspired by so-called Neoplatonic philosophy, Leonardo had conceived a 'heavenly' and a 'vulgar' version of the same subject, which represents the two sides of the love goddess Venus.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy's art exhibitions:

BRESCIA - Museo di Santa Giulia: Inca, Origins and Mysteries of the Civilisation of Gold; 250 artefacts, December 4-June 27.

CATANIA - Palazzo Valle: Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana; until March 14.

FERRARA - Palazzo dei Diamanti: Boldini In The Paris Of The Impressionists; show on Ferrara-born artist's 'beau monde' portraiture years from 1871 to 1886; until January 10.

(ANSA) - Siena, November 13 - A medieval market that was once the heart of this Tuscan town is to flourish once more in Siena's historic Piazza del Campo, the site of the world-famous Palio horse race each summer.

The colours, sights, smells and sounds of the bustling weekly market will return to Siena's beautiful central square this Saturday.

The one-off event has been organized to commemorate 700 years since the medieval city's renowned collection of duties and rights, the Costituto, was set down in the common tongue.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 12 - An award-winning portrait of a black crested macaque by an Italian photographer who had to spend six weeks without changing his clothes to get the shot has gone on show in Rome.

Stefano Unterthiner wore the same outfit every day during his stay on Sulawesi island in Indonesia so that he and his camera would be accepted by a group of macaque monkeys.

(ANSA) - Venice, November 12 - Venice residents are to stage a mock funeral for the city Saturday to highlight the drastic shrinking of its native population.

Three gondolas will escort a red coffin along famed canals in a symbolic lament for the once-flourishing city's decline.

In the 1950s there were some 300,000 native Venetians but the latest surveys say the population has shrunk to 60,000.

People aren't scared the city is sinking but have been fleeing to cheaper and more liveable local towns, experts say.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 9 - Photographer Roberto Morrione's portraits of women at a new show in Rome are not just faces but voices who tell visitors what they think about him and themselves.

''I wanted to give the sitters an opportunity to become active rather than passive subjects," said Morrione who asked each to contribute a written piece to accompany her portrait.

"There were no restrictions, they were free to say whatever crossed their minds," said the photographer who is showing their 'captions' beneath their photos.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 6 - Rome has set up a fleet of chariot-riding 'angels' to fly to the rescue of tourists.

The 16 young men and women are stationed at various points in the city centre, Termini Station and Fiumicino Airport.

Sporting jackets saying Ask Me, they are ready to whisk into action on their modified segways, shaped to evoke the chariots of Ancient Rome and clad in the city's emblematic colours, red and yellow.

''The tourists seem to be very happy with this new service,'' said Simona, an 'angel' working at Fiumicino.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 6 - The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy's art exhibitions:

BRESCIA - Museo di Santa Giulia: Inca, Origins and Mysteries of the Civilisation of Gold; 250 artefacts, December 4-June 27.

CALDAROLA (MACERATA) - Palazzo dei Cardinali Pallotta: reassembled collection of 17th-century cardinal; 60 works by artists including Caravaggio, Guercino, Guido Reni, Mattia Preti, Carlo Maratta, Annibale Carracci, Ludovico Carracci and Elisabetta Sirani; until November 12.

(ANSA) - Paris, November 4 - One of the largest retrospectives ever devoted to leading Italian abstract artist Lucio Fontana has opened its doors in Paris.

The newly opened Tornabuoni Gallery features 60 paintings by Fontana (1899-1968), 48 of which are for sale, spanning his entire career.

''This is easily the most important French exhibit on Fontana since the Pompidou show of 1987,'' commented top Fontana scholar Enrico Crispolti.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 4 - An Italian scientist has invented an environmentally friendly gel for restoring frescos.

The so-called 'eco-gel' is 97% water with only a tiny amount of oil-based solvent that gets deeper than conventional cleaners, Florence University chemistry professor Piero Baglioni says.

''It's particularly good on frescos because it penetrates deep inside their pores,'' Baglioni says in the current edition of Angewandte Chemie, the journal of the German Chemical Society.

What's more, Baglioni says, his gel doesn't emit fumes.