Art and Travel

(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.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 3 - Heavy winds and rain continued to batter Italy on Tuesday as an Atlantic storm front made its way down the peninsula.

Local authorities on the Aeolian islands north of Sicily said gale force winds and high waves had cut the archipelago off from the rest of the country.

Local residents who work in Sicily were reported to be stranded at ferry landings near Messina while a number of tourists are reportedly trapped on the islands.

The storm front also dumped around 40cm of snow in the northeastern Alps closing a number of mountain roads.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 2 - Italy is bracing for a wet week, with rainfall expected to be the heaviest in six months, forecasters said on Monday.

Four Atlantic fronts are set to sweep the peninsula from noprthwest to southeast by Sunday, the first of which began its passage Monday over the northwest and may dump as much as 40cm of snow in the northeastern Alps.

The Coldiretti farmers union has warned that this week's heavy rainfall, which will be accompanied by strong winds, may compromise the autumn planting season.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - 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) - Florence, October 29 - A tiny-self portrait of Caravaggio in his famous painting of Bacchus can be seen clearly for the first time, thanks to a new study by researchers and restorers.

The image of the artist working at his easel, hidden in a reflection of the glass carafe in the young god's hand, was first spotted by a restorer cleaning the canvas in 1922.

Detailed analyses using the most advanced scientific equipment in the world has confirmed the tiny portrait does indeed exist and revealed it clearly for the first time.

(ANSA) - London, October 29 - The secret of the Mona Lisa's vanishing smile is in the messages sent to the brain by the beholder's eyes, a Spanish neuroscientist claims.

''Sometimes one channel wins over the other, and you see the smile, sometimes others take over and you don't see the smile,'' Alicante-based neuroscientist and art lover Luis Martinez Otero says in the latest edition of British science journal New Scientist.

Otero asked volunteers to look at different-sized versions of the portrait from varying differences and in varying light.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 29 - The Italian capital is staging two large Caravaggio exhibitions to mark four centuries since the maestro's death.

The first show compares Caravaggio's work with that of 20th-century British artist Francis Bacon, while the second offers an array of the Italian's top works from museums around the world.

'Caravaggio-Bacon', which also coincides with the centenary of the latter's birth, provides visitors with a highly unusual approach to the work of both artists.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 26 - The purchase of Renaissance art chronicler Giorgio Vasari's archives for 150 million euros has fallen through because the buyer is dead, A go-between said Wednesday.

In an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Vasilij Stepanov, who represented an undisclosed Russian magnate who wanted to buy the archives, said the deal has been off since 9 September when his client died in a car crash.

Stepanov said ''it was all in place, I'd even been paid for my services and then everything fell through''.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 28 - Train travellers will be able to get from Rome to Milan in under three hours for the first time next month, Italian rail chief Mauro Moretti said Wednesday.

From December 13, he said, the fastest journey time from Roma Termini to Milano Centrale will be 2 hours 59 minutes.

The Roma Tiburtina-Milano Rogoredo trip will be even shorter, at two hours 45 minutes.

Today's new generation of Freccia Rossa trains have slashed journey times on Italy's main routes and become an increasingly attractive option for business travellers.

(ANSA) - Piacenza, October 28 - A passion for the outdoors and a trend in small-scale paintings are explored in an exhibition here looking at Macchiaioli artists, their brethren and successors.

The exhibit showcases a collection of 40 outstanding works, completed by Tuscan artists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 26 - It his highly unlikely that the archives of 16th century art biographer Giorgio Vasari will ever leave Italy even if they are sold, Italian Justice Minister Angelino Alfano said Monday.

Following news last week that a Russian holding company had bought the archives for 150 million euros, Alfano reiterated that a special legal legal provision ''binds'' the archives to Vasari's historic home, now a museum, in the Tuscan city of Arezzo.

'ShortTit'Vasari archive sale not yet certain'/ShortTit' (ANSA) - Arezzo, October 23 - Plans by a private owner to sell the archives of Renaissance art chronicler Giorgio Vasari to Russian businessmen may not go through, judicial sources said Friday.

Rome prosecutors are looking into the sale of Vasari's sketches, notes and letters, including correspondence with Michelangelo and contemporary popes, to Russian firm Ross Engineering for 150 million euros.

Tuscany culture chief, Diana Toccafondi, who asked investigators to look into the matter, said the state recently financed a total restoration of the archives and has spent considerable resources ''protecting them'' from outside interests in the past.