Italian culture vultures are in for a treat this year, with a host of top-name exhibitions lined up for 2008.
The major art shows in the pipeline span over 400 years and a variety of different tastes and styles, from Renaissance masters to innovators of the 1800s through to stars of the 20th century.
The year kicks off on January 20 in the eastern town of Forli, which is hosting a show devoted to the Baroque artist Guido Cagnacci in the Museum of San Domenico.
Six days later, one of the highlights of 2008 opens in Venice: an exhibit looking at Titian's final pieces. The event in the Gallerie dell'Accademia will feature 28 of his masterpieces completed between 1550 and the year of his death in 1576.
Another major exhibit also opens in the Lagoon City that day: Rome And The Barbarians. On display in Palazzo Grassi, the exhibit looks at the Empire and its relationship with other peoples across continents. An array of archaeological treasures will be showcased, charting centuries of conflict and coexistence, and looking at the foundations of later Italian art and culture.
On February 2, the focus shifts back to the Renaissance, when the Umbrian towns of Perugia and Spello hold a joint initiative devoted to a local boy who made it big: Pinturicchio.
The National Gallery in Perugia will bring together nearly all the Umbrian artist's moveable works for the first time ever. Meanwhile, in Spello, the Capella Bella (Beautiful Chapel) will reopen to visitors, renowned for its magnificent cycle of Pinturicchio frescoes that influenced other great names such as Raphael and Perugino.
Moving forward several centuries, Palazzo Roverella in the northeast town of Rovigo is showing a collection of work by Italian artists from the Belle Epoque. Opening on February 10, the exhibit will include paintings by Giovanni Boldini, Giuseppe De Nittis and Federico Zandomeneghi among others.
Another popular artist from the same period will be spotlighted in an exhibit opening a week later in the central city of Ferrara: Joan Miro. Large oils, sculptures and drawings will all be displayed in Palazzo dei Diamanti, charting the entire career of the Catalan artist, from his early near figurative pieces into later pure Abstract works.
Rome's first top exhibit of the year opens at the end of February in the Scuderie del Quirinale, and looks at 19th-century art in Italy. Starting with the Romantic School of Milan, it moves through to landscape art of the Posillipo School, comparing and contrasting a variety of movements and styles.
The capital's next major show gets under way in March at the Vittoriano and looks at the work of Pierre-August Renoir. Around 150 paintings have been lined up for the event, with a particular focus on the Impressionist master's relationship with Italy.
Milan will host an exhibition devoted to 20th-century Irish artist Francis Bacon. The retrospective will take in 50 paintings from his career, from his earliest, figurative studies in the 1930s, through to his famous triptychs of the 1970s and 1980s.
The central town of Traversetolo celebrates one of the 20th century's greatest stars later in March, with 140 paintings by Andy Warhol.
Other 20th-century greats, Mario Schifano and Giorgio de Chirico will be the focus of exhibits in Rome's National Gallery of Modern Art, in June and July.
In September, Vicenza commemorates 500 years since the birth of renowned Italian architect Andrea Palladio, with an exhibit that will later move on to London and the US.
A number of exhibitions will also mark a century since the creation of Futurism, with events planned in Trento's Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Milan's Palazzo Reale, the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome and Venice's Museo Correr.
Bringing the year to a close is an important show devoted to the English Romantic movement, with paintings by JMW Turner among others.
