Art and Travel

(ANSA) - Venice, February 8 - Venice's annual carnival celebrations were in full swing on Monday, promising to combine tradition with modernity, and high-brow entertainment with family fun.

The festivities were launched on Sunday with the traditional 'Flight of the Dove' inaugural ceremony.

The event, which originally saw white birds released from the top of St Mark's 90-metre bell-tower, now involves a white-clad celebrity, representing an angel, being lowered to the ground.

This year's 'angel' was the French-Italian heiress and model Bianca Brandolini d'Adda, following in the footsteps of US rapper Coolio and world fencing champion Frida Scarpa, among others

Brandolini d'Adda said afterwards the experience had been an amazing one.

(ANSA) - Florence, February 5 - Florence's prestigious Palazzo Medici Riccardi building is playing host to a highly unusual exhibition exploring the concept of the toilet as art form.

Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's infamous 1917 urinal artwork, 'Fountain', the exhibition's organizers asked 20 designers and artists to produce their own fantastical interpretations of toilets.

The finished products, which went on display in the Renaissance palace on Thursday evening, feature a range of designs.

(ANSA) - Rome, February 5 - Italy's national civil aviation authority ENAC on Friday ordered a probe into an alleged security lapse at Rome's Fiumicino international airport during the night.

The action came after the weekly Espresso published a cover story by a reporter who was able to penetrate the international terminal on two separate occasions to find that not only were all security devices turned off, but the departures area was also a nighttime shelter to a community of homeless people.

(ANSA) - Rome, February 5 - The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy's art exhibitions:

AOSTA - Forte di Bard: Wildlife Photographer of the Year; best 100 photos of 2009 chosen by BBC and London's Natural History Museum; until March 25.

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

(ANSA) - Rome, February 4 - The largest exhibition of Aboriginal art ever held in Italy has opened in Rome, showcasing works by some of Australia's most prominent contemporary artists.

Around 220 paintings and wood sculptures by 127 artists are on display at Palazzo Incontro for the Australia Today show, exploring the cultural roots of the continent's nomadic Aborigines.

Artists whose paintings regularly fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction including Rover Thomas, Clifford Possum, Judy Watson Napangardi and Nancy Nungurrayi are among those whose work is on display.

(ANSA) - Paris, February 3 - The United Nations cultural arm UNESCO signed an urban renewal partnership with the city of Naples on Wednesday that proponents say is the first of its kind.

In Paris to sign the accord, Campania Region President Antonio Bassolino said the agreement will steer conservation and urban development efforts ahead of the Universal Culture Forum that the city will host in 2013.

(ANSA) - Rome, February 3 - The largest exhibition ever devoted to Italian contemporary art star Sandro Chia, now running in Rome, explores his 40-year voyage through colour and myth.

The National Gallery of Modern Art (GNAM) is hosting the show, which features 56 paintings and five bronze sculptures, starting with the artist's earliest work from the 1960s.

Chia, born in 1946, is best known for his prominent role in Italy's Transavanguardia movement, which blossomed in the late 1970s.

(ANSA) - Pompeii, February 1 - Visitors to the archaeological site of Pompeii will soon get the chance to observe the complex excavation process involved as it happens.

Excavation and restoration work at the House of the Chaste Lovers, which resumed a few months ago following ten years of neglect, will open to the public from the start of February.

Visitors will be allowed to enter sections of the building and watch archaeologists at work, gaining a deeper understanding of the effort involved in bringing 2,000-year-old remains to light.

(ANSA) - Rome, January 29 - The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy's art exhibitions:

AOSTA - Forte di Bard: Wildlife Photographer of the Year; best 100 photos of 2009 chosen by BBC and London's Natural History Museum; until March 25.

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

(ANSA) - Ancona, January 28 - An exhibition opening in Beijing next month pays tribute to a 16th-century Italian mathematician and missionary who settled in China, officials from his native Marche region have announced.

The exhibition will explore the extraordinary life of Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), a Jesuit priest and academic born in Macerata, who spent most of his adult years in China and eventually became a member of the court of Ming Emperor Wanli.

(ANSA) - Rome, January 28 - The Italian Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC) said Monday it would sue Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary for calling its chief an "idiot" earlier this week during a press conference in Milan.

The announcement was made by the ENAC boss himself, Vito Riggio, who said the remark ''offended the image and dignity'' of the agency as a whole.

(ANSA) - Rome, January 27 - Italians remembered the Holocaust on Wednesday with a series of events and ceremonies around the country commemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.

One of the signature moments of Holocaust Remembrance Day this year was a parliamentary address by Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel, only the fourth non-MP ever to take the podium before the Italian lower house.

(ANSA) - Siena, January 26 - A museum exploring the history and uses of Siena's hidden underground waterways is opening in this Tuscan hill town on Wednesday.

The Museo dell'Acqua, or Museum of Water, will provide visitors with a detailed overview of the 25-kilometre water network, which developed over the course of centuries.

''The city has a new exhibition space that showcases the history of Siena and its territories, helping bring them to life,'' said Siena Urban Planning Councillor Fabio Minuti.

(ANSA) - Florence, January 22 - A gruesome scene showing a group of decomposing syphilis victims by Italy's greatest 17th-century wax artist has gone on show in Florence for the first time after a painstaking restoration.

The work by Sicilian abbot Gaetano Zumbo (1656-1701) is on display at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure after experts there pieced it together from fragments that were discovered in a storage facility at the city's Palazzo Mozzi Bardini Gallery.

(ANSA) - Rome, January 22 - An exhibition celebrating the allure of stunning floral creations over three centuries of art opens Sunday in this eastern Italian town.

The San Domenico Museum in Forli is staging an entire show devoted to depictions of blossoms and blooms, including paintings by a host of masters from the 1500s to the early 20th century.

Work by Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, Caravaggio, Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Giovanni Boldini and Giuseppe De Nittis will be among those featured.