The soulfulness of Botticelli, starkness of Michelangelo, solemnity of Titian and desolation of De Chirico punctuate an upcoming Italian show on the melancholy in art through the ages.
The exhibit in Verona spans centuries of art, moving through Caravaggio, Poussin, Canova, Bonnard, Modigliani, and Magritte up to the present day.
Curator Giorgio Cortenova claims a primacy for Italy in examining the theme.
"The Italian roots of melancholy formed the basis for the modern sensibility, starting from the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent," Cortenova says.
"Melancholy moved from Aristotle to Petrarch to Leopardi, changing clothes but staying the same muse".
Explaining the show's title, The Seventh Splendour, Cortenova said "a commingling of courtly love, melancholy and meditation marks Dante's seventh heaven".
The show kicks off in the 15th and 16th centuries with Botticelli's Return of Judith, Albrecht Durer's dramatic Sea Monster and a very rare Michelangelo sketch of a male head, originally executed for the Sistine Chapel.
It continues through the 17th century with Titian's portrait of a grave cardinal, three agonising Del Greco saints and a Suffering Magdalene by Caravaggio.
In the 18th century, neoclassical greats Poussin and Canova precede Romantic paintings by Henry Fussli, William Blake and Caspar David Friedrich.
Italy's Giovanni Fattori and France's Pierre Bonnard represent the late 19th century while Futurist icons Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni kick off the 20th.
Later highlights include a Modigliani sculpture, some of Giorgio De Chirico's eerie metaphysical works and the wan nudes of Paul Delvaux.
The show winds up with contemporary artists like Tony Cragg, Giorgio Olivieri and Medhat Shafik.
'The Seventh Splendour' features some 200 works from major museums in Rome, Milan, Florence, Paris, Zurich, London, Budapest and Dresden.
It runs at Verona's newly restored Palazzo della Ragione from March 25 to July 29 2007.
