Italy Art Guide: Spring 2009 Museums and Exhibits Rome, Florence, Venice Italy

Spring 2009 Italy Art Guide:

With this week's Holy Week earthquake in Italy destroying families, lives and dreams WebVisionItaly.com is even more resolute to work hard to capture the culture and history of the Italic Peninsula to preserve at least on film the architecture, the arts and today's people who live in Italy to preserve humanity's long journey on the Italic peninsula hopeful that the lessons will point us toward building a better tomorrow. Buona Pasqua! Happy Easter.

The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy's art exhibitions Spring 2009. For coverage consideration send you event by email to Motorino at Web Vision Italy.

AREZZO - Museo Statale d'Arte Medievale e Moderna: 130 works by Della Robbia family and contemporaries like Donatello and Ghiberti; plus tours around Arezzo province taking in 25 towns and 168 works; until June 7.

ASCOLI - Galleria d'Arte Contemporanea: 'Sedendo e Mirando', 130 landscapes by cartoonist Tullio Pericoli; until September 13.

BOLOGNA - Museo d'Arte Moderna (MAMBO): More than 100 works by Giorgio Morandi in one of world's biggest ever retrospectives on Bolognese artist, sent from Metropolitan Museum in New York to Morandi's home town; until April 13.

BOLZANO - Museo Archeologico dell'Alto Adige: Iceman joined by more than 60 mummies from Ancient Egypt, Asia, South America and Oceania; until October 25.

COMO - Villa Olmo: 'Chagall, Kandinsky, Malevich: Masters of the Russian Avant-Garde', until July 26.

FERRARA - Palazzo dei Diamanti: Giorgio Morandi; 130 etchings demonstrate Bolognese artist's lesser-known lifelong passion; until June 5.

FLORENCE - Bargello: 'Gian Lorenzo Bernini, The Living Marble', until July 12. For more about Bernini click for Bernini Walking Map Rome Tour by WebVisionItaly.com.

- Palazzo Strozzi: Galileo show marking 400th anniversary of his first observations of the night sky; 250 exhibits including the middle finger from Galileo's right hand; until August 30.

- Palazzo Pitti: Memories of Antiquity in 20th-Century Art; 130 paintings and sculptures from Etruscan, classical and Renaissance times and 20th-century works by Dali', Picasso, Modigliani, de Chirico and others; until July 12.

- Palazzo Medici: 29 outfits from Court of Lorenzo il Magnifico recreated in paper from contemporary paintings by Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave; until June 14.

FORLI' - Musei di San Domenico: Canova, The Classical Ideal, Sculpture and Painting; 200 sculptures and paintings from world's galleries; until June 21.

MAMIANO DI TRAVERSETOLO - Fondazione Mamiani Rocca: 55 Rembrandt etchings from Petit Palais in Paris; until June 25.

MILAN - Castello Sforzesco: Michelangelo's Pieta' Rondanini meets his 'Rediscovered Cross', till May 3.

- same venue: First show in Italy on the samurai; helmets, weaponry and armour for warriors and horses from the Azuchi Momoyama (1575-1603) and Edo (1603-1867) periods; 100 items gathered from Milan's Castello Sforzesco and Koelliker collections; until June 2.

- same venue: Italy's biggest show marking 100th anniversary of Futurism; 500 works including Marinetti, Boccioni, Balla, Carra', Severini, Russolo; until June 7.

- same venue: Rene' Magritte and the Mystery of Nature; one of Italy's largest-ever Magritte events; around 100 paintings featuring Magritte's signature apples, blue skies and birds; until March 29.

- Pinacoteca di Brera: four Caravaggios united for gallery's 200th anniversary year: two versions of Supper At Emmaus (1601 and 1606); The Musicians (1595) and Boy With A Basket Of Fruit (1593); until March 29.

NAPLES - Archaeological Museum: Herculaneum: Three Centuries of Discoveries; until April 13.

PADUA - Civici Musei agli Eremitani: 100 Years of Portrait Painting In The Age of Galileo, 1550-1650; 70 works including Titians and Tintorettos; until July 15.

PONTASSIEVE - Sala delle Colonne: 49 paintings and sculptures by Antonio Ligabue including celebrated Self Portrait With Dog; until June 7.

ROME - Colosseum: 'Divus Vespasanius', celebration of Emperor Vespasian, general who took throne from Nero in 69 AD and transformed Rome, founding Flavian dynasty which built Colosseum; until January 10.

- Capitoline Museums: Fra Angelico: The Dawn of the Renaissance; 49 works by the early Renaissance master and friar; until July 5.

- Vittoriano: Giotto and the Trecento; 150 works from world's museums including 20 by pre-Renaissance master himself; until June 29.

- same venue: The Sabines, over 120 never-before-seen works from terracotta throne of King of Eretum, paintings and illuminated codices, up to film posters and clips of legendary 'Rape of the Sabine Women' that helped fledgling Rome survive; until April 26.

- Scuderie del Quirinale: Futurist works from 30 museums including reconstruction of the famous Futurist exhibition held at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris in 1912; also, four works returning from New York for first time including Boccioni's 'Stati d'animo' triptych; until May 24.

- Palazzo delle Esposizioni: Darwin 1809-2009, Italy's biggest-ever show on evolution; until May 3.

- Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna: Cy Twombly, first retrospective in Italy; 70-work show previously seen at Tate and Guggenheim Bilbao; until May 24.

- Chiostro del Bramante: The Myth of Julius Caesar, first ever show focusing on him alone; 200 items from ancient times until the 20th century; until April 5.

- Museo Fondazione Roma: Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), lyrical Japanese landscape artist who influenced Van Gogh and Monet; 200 woodblock prints on show for first time in Italy; until June 7.

- Museo Carlo Bilotti: 100 Giorgio de Chirico metaphysical drawings; until April 19.

ROVERETO - MART Gallery: Futurism 100: Avant-Gardes Compared, Italy, Germany And Russia: marking 100th anniversary of Futurism; Marinetti, Kandinsky, Der Sturm, Chagall, Klee, August Macke, Franz Marc; until June 7.

ROVIGO - Palazzo Roverella: Art Deco in Italy 1919-1939; until June 28.

SIENA - Santa Maria della Scala museum: Art, Genius, Madness: 300 works including Van Gogh, Ernst, Dix, Guttuso, Ligabue; until May 25.

TREVISO - Casa dei Carraresi: Canaletto, Venice and its Splendours; until April 5.

URBINO - Ducal Palace: 'Raphael and Urbino', 20 mostly youthful works plus influence of Perugino and Signorelli; until July 12.