A new exhibition takes tourists on a trip into Italy's past, with a range of historic paintings showcasing the country's best-loved views and sites.
The exhibit boasts nearly 60 paintings on loan from St Petersburg's prestigious Hermitage Museum, as well as a selection of images by photographer Enrica Scalfari, offering a modern interpretation of traditional landmarks.
''This is a truly splendid exhibit, which uses visual language, history, criticism and ethics to explore the coming and going between Italy and the rest of Europe,'' commented Rome's museum chief Claudio Strinati.
''Everyone will find something personal they can relate to in this show, because what the artists are saying is not that far from our own, modern sensibility''.
Although on loan from Russia, the paintings were produced by from artists across Europe, all of whom were captivated by Italy's natural and architectural attractions.
Several well-known artists feature in the exhibit but the works have been chosen less for their fame and more for their documentary value.
The curators have also selected piece they feel offer an insight into the painter's personal relationship with Italy.
Each of the different artists focused on different aspects of the Bel Paese's tourist attractions.
Paintings by the Baroque-era Flemish artist Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674) typically used classic Roman architecture as a backdrop for everyday scenes, such as markets.
Austrian artist Emil Jakob Schindler (1842-1892) spent months in Venice capturing the blues of the Lagoon City, while Frenchman Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) painted a series of wild Romantic seascapes.
The exhibition also includes paintings of Italy's most famous sights captured by a variety of artists at different times, with views of the Pantheon and the Quirinale in Rome, Piazza del Duomo in Milan and Piazza della Signoria in Florence.
Most of the pieces on display were acquired for imperial or aristocratic collections by Russian travellers, although some also come from private collections.
Entitled 'Visions of the Grand Tour from the Hermitage (1640-1880): Italian Landscapes and People in Russian Collections', the exhibition runs until February 22 in the Musei di San Salvatore in Lauro.
