3444 Arts guide: exhibits in Italy

The following is a city-by-city calendar of some of Italy's top art exhibitions:

CITTA' DI CASTELLO - Palazzo Vitelli: Raphael's Debut in Urbino, Citta' di Castello and Perugia. The star attraction of the show is Raphael's Saint John the Baptist Preaching, which left Italy in 1764 and is on loan from London's National Gallery. The exhibition also features a study for a work called The Eternal Father and his Saint Catherine of Alexandria; runs until June 11 .

COMO Villa Olmo: Magritte; this major show on one of the masters of Surrealism features 60 oil paintings and 20 drawings, on loan from Belgium's Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts; until July 16 .

FLORENCE - Palazzo Pitti: Mythologica et Erotica (Mythology and Eroticism) at the Museo degli Argenti (Silver Museum) until May 15. The show features 213 works, including paintings, murals, sculptures, ceramics, prints, jewellery, coins and various other items - all depicting erotic stories from ancient mythology .

- Uffizi: Bramante e Gli Altri (Bramante And The Others), until May 7; works by Donato Bramante, including designs for St Peter's Basilica in Rome; other Renaissance architects spotlighted in the exhibit include Bernardo Buontalenti, Ludovico Cigoli, Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Jacopo Sansovino and Giorgio Vasari .

- Uffizi Gallery: The Mind of Leonardo, The Universal Genius at Work; until January 7; the show presents numerous paintings and drawings as well as a series of faithful but still spectacular models of the most innovative machines conceived by the Renaissance giant .

MILAN - Palazzo Reale: Helmut Newton, Sex & Landscape; the show, which runs until June 4, features 90 large-scale images of the late fashion photographer's famous explorations of the female form, as well as lesser-known travel and landscape studies .

- Castello Sforzesco: Codex Trivulzianus; designs, sketches, notes and ideas by Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci - normally accessible only to scholars - is on show until May 21. As well as the Leonardo codex, the exhibit will showcase a number of other 15th and 16th-century texts and illuminated manuscripts .

- FORMA (International Centre for Photography): A selection of the epic Life magazine photographs that helped form our collective memory of the 20th century are on show until May 21. MANTUA - Casa di Andrea Mantegna: Cultura Artistica a Mantova nel Quattrocento (In Andrea Mantegna's House: Artistic Culture in 15th-Century Mantua) runs until June 4. The exhibition displays bronzes, drawings, manuscripts, letters and books showing how the great painter and sculptor was a linchpin in the movement that allowed the Gonzaga court to rival those of Florence and Milan .

NAPLES Capodimonte Museum: The Italian 16th Century Between the Renaissance and Mannerism; until September 13. The exhibition is dominated by the 16th-century portrait artist supreme, Titian, but also features works by Pontormo, Bronzino, Parmigiano, Perugino and Raphael .

ROME - Vittoriano: Amedeo Modigliani; the show, which has been organized to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tuscan painter's arrival in Paris, presents some 100 works, including 17 paintings never before exhibited in Italy, watercolours and drawings. Until June 20 .

- Scuderie del Quirinale: Antonello da Messina; until June 25. The show will feature 39 of the 45 surviving masterpieces attributed to the mysterious 15th-century Sicilian artist. The last exhibition, in 1953, featured fewer than half his extant works .

- Vittoriano: Scicolone, Lazzaro, Loren; the show retraces the movie legend's career with an exhibition of her personal memorabilia; until May 7 .

- Hadrian's Villa: Egyptian Suggestions; the exhibit shows how Hadrian peppered his villa with Egyptian-style divine representations of his lover Antinoos after he drowned in the Nile in 130 AD. Visitors will also get their first look at a monumental staircase that recently came to light and is now believed to be the main entrance to the site, the staircase bears Egyptian-style crocodile motifs. The show lasts until October 15 .

ROVIGO - Palazzo Roverella: Le Meraviglie della Pittura tra Venezia e Ferrara (The Marvels of Painting in Venice and Ferrara); gathers some 150 paintings by artists from the two cities, including Bellini and Tiepolo; until June 1 .

TURIN - Palazzo Bricherasio: Il Papiro di Artemidoro (The Papyrus of Artemidorus), the 1st century B.C. parchment is believed to contain the earliest cartography of the Greek-Roman era; until May 7 .

- Museo regionale di Scienze Naturali: The Inuits And The People Of Ice; the show features 400 items exploring Eskimo life from the 1700s through to modern times. The items range from everyday objects to a selection of artwork and a full-sized igloo; until April 30 .

- Museo delle Antichita': Eroi e Atleti (Heroes and Athletes); the show includes renowned ancient Greek and Roman statues of athletes as well as objects belonging to contemporary athletes; until April 30 .

- VATICAN MUSEUM - Charlemagne Wing: The Papal Swiss Guard, 500 Years of History, Art and Life; runs from March 29 until June 6; the show charts the history of the guards through weapons, objects and documents .