The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy's top art exhibitions:
AREZZO - Museo Statale d'Arte Medievale e Moderna: Piero della Francesca masterpieces including his first painting, a Madonna and Child, missing for 50 years until its recent discovery. Other attractions are diptych of Urbino rulers Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, which has left the Uffizi for the first time; the Louvre's portrait of Rimini lord Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta; and the Madonna di Senigallia from Urbino. Show combined with tour of surrounding villages where Piero (1412-1492) made his name in the 1430s including Sansepolcro with its Madonna della Misericordia polyptych and Resurrection fresco, and Monterchi's Madonna del Parto; until July 22.
BERGAMO - Gallery of Modern and Contemporary art: Vanessa Beecroft; the contemporary Italian artist has won international acclaim for her nude 'tableaux vivants' but this new exhibit explores a lesser-known, more traditional side to her work. Over 400 drawings and paintings are on display; until July 29.
FLORENCE - Palazzo Strozzi: Florence and Paul Cezanne; of some 100 works on display, around 20 are by the French artist, including some of his most famous paintings: Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair, The Bathers and House on the Marne, a very rare loan from the White House. The show also includes paintings by some of Cezann's contemporaries, including Pissarro, Van Gogh, Matisse and John Singer Sargent; until July 29.
- 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 Limonaia (Lemon House), 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.
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.
PARMA - Magnani Rocca Foundation: Mario Sironi, a comprehensive look at the neglected Metaphysical works of one of the founders of the Futurist movement who was, until recently, tainted by his links with Fascism; until July 15.
POTENZA - Pinacoteca Comunale: Renato Guttuso, 33 erotic works, until July 30.
ROME - Colosseum: Eros; this show brings together 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.
- Galleria Mucciaccia: Mimmo Rotella, 50 works including charcoal sketches, paintings and famous 'decollages' from Pop Art to graffitism; until July 30.
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.
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; July 28-November 28.
- Museo Correr: Sargent and Venice; John Singer Sargent visited Venice more than 10 times between 1879 and 1913 and its palaces, churches, squares and canals feature in over 150 of his paintings. Around 60 are on display in this major show; until July 22.
