April 4th - April 10th

Pisa, April 8 - (Adnkronos) - Two panels by Cimabue, currently on show in the exhibition entitled ‘’Cimabue in Pisa. 13th Century Pisan Painting from Giunta to Giotto’’, will be the protagonists of an extraordinary international exhibition event: the National Gallery of London and the Frick Collection of New York will dedicate, precisely to these works, the exhibition that initially had the title ‘’Unprecedent reunion’’, but that, subsequent to the Pisa exhibition, will change name.

Brescia, April 8 (Adnkronos) - Hot flashes and intense tonality will be resplendent in Brescia next autumn: the ones held in the Santa Giulia Museum, that will host, from October 22 until March 19, 2006, the event of the year, the exhibition entitled ‘’Gauguin / Van Gogh, The Adventure of New Colour’’.

Castellaneta (Ta), April 8 - (Adnkronos) - More than two thousand people have crowded, one month on from the opening, the New Rodolfo Valentino Museum in Castellaneta in the province of Taranto. A permanent exhibition that was inaugurated in conjunction with the exhibition ‘’Rodolfo Valentino. Il mio sogno si sta avverando’’ (Rodolfo Valentino. My dream is coming true) created for the 110th anniversary of the birth of the actor.

Siena, April 8 - (Adnkronos) - The Museum of Art for children in Siena, in collaboration with the city of Sarmede (Treviso), will set up, from Saturday April 9 until Sunday June 12, the seventh Sienese edition of the international exhibition of illustrations for children ‘’Le immagini della fantasia’’ (The Images of Fantasy), at the “Magazzini del Sale” exhibition venue within Palazzo Pubblico, in Piazza del Campo.

Rome, April 7 (Adnkronos) - Project MICHAEL (Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe) of the Cultural Heritage Ministry, a multilingual trans-European portal for the digital cultural resources of France, the United Kingdom and Italy, will be presented on April 22 at the Monumental Complex of the ex-church of Santa Marta.

Florence, April 7 (Adnkronos) - Ten large canvases by painter Luca Giordano (1632-1705) will arrive in Florence from the National Gallery of London. The occasion was given by the exhibition entitled ‘’Stanze Segrete - Gli artisti dei Riccardi’’ (Secret Rooms - The artists of the Riccardi), that will take place at Palazzo Medici Riccardi from April 15 to July 17, 2005. The exhibition is part of the third appointment of the ‘’Stanze Segrete’’ series, which sees the closing of the first phase of a broad program to recuperate the museographical identity of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, commenced in 2001 by the Culture Department of the Province of Florence.

Rome, April 7 (Adnkronos) - Appeal to the President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to nominate writer and essayist Fernanda Pivano life senator. The promoter of the initiative is Domenico Procacci, moving force behind Fandango Libri and the Fandango cinema house, who has already gathered the support of a substantial group of intellectuals that goes from Literature Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo to writer Dacia Maraini, via singer Adriano Celentano and actress Laura Morante.

Florence, April 6 - (Adnkronos) - Following two years of work, the restoration intervention of the “Kaffeehaus”, work of Zanobi Del Rosso, that enriches one of the most suggestive green areas of Florence, has arrived to completion. The building, situated within the Boboli Gardens, commissioned by grand duke Pietro Leopoldo as a rest area for the court and realized between 1774 and 1776, has returned to its original splendour.

Ferrara, April 6 - (Adnkronos) - From April 7 to 10 the city of Ferrara will host “Restauro 2005”, the show on the art of restoration and the preservation of cultural heritage, this year in its 12th edition. Italy is universally recognized as the site of the greatest world artistic heritage: the Ferrara Show is a unique occasion to broaden one’s knowledge of this immense heritage and the authentic masterpieces recently restored to their ancient splendour, awaiting only to be discovered.

Rome, April 6 (Adnkronos) - The celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Pascoli (1855-1912) are set to start. The festivities in honour of the poet of the ‘’Fanciullino” will culminate next December 31, exact day of his birth. The official opening ceremony for the celebrations is scheduled for Saturday April 9 in Barga, in the province of Lucca, where the poet of Romagna origin withdrew to live with his faithful sister Mariu’.

Rome, April 6 (Adnkronos) - 220 thousand visitors participated in ‘’Gemine Muse’’, the appointment with contemporary art that was held from November 2004 to February 2005 in 36 museums of 28 Italian cities and 8 European cities, and that has seen protagonist 106 young artists chosen and selected by 47 art critics coordinated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio. The public undertook an artistic journey between works, installations, sound productions, performances and videos: a long voyage capable of unveiling the harmony between tradition and innovation, by creating a close relationship between the world of museums, young emerging artists and critics.

Washington, April 6 - (Adnkronos) - American writer Saul Bellow, 20th century literature great, has died at the age of 89 years in his home of Brookline, in Massachusetts. The news was announced by his publisher in New York. Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, Bellow was considered one of the great exponents of the school of Jewish-American novelists of corrosive humor. His most famous books include ‘’Dangling Man’’, “Seize the day”, ‘’Herzog’’ and ‘’Henderson the rain king”. Writer of infinite stylistic resources, capable of giving voice to every fluctuation of thought of his characters, and evoking in all its substantiality the material reality that surrounds them, Bellow is considered by many as the greatest North-American narrator following Hemingway and Faulkner. He was a perceptive interpreter of the anthropological changes of the 20th century.

Siena, April 5 - (Adnkronos) – Historian but also philosopher, man of letters and civil rights activist: Pierre Vidal-Naquet, one of the most important and well-known Hellenists on a international level, will be at the University of Siena to speak about the everlasting myth of Atlantis. At 11am on Thursday April 7, in the meeting room of the Santa Chiara Graduate College, the French historian Vidal-Naquet will hold a conference entitled ‘’L’Atlantide: petite histoire d’un mythe platonicien’’ (Atlantis: brief history of a Platonic myth). The conference refers to a book of the same title that has just come out in France with the ‘’Les Belles Lettres’’ editions.

Padua, April 5 (Adnkronos) - ‘’With this exhibition the masterpieces from Giuseppe Fiocco’s collection of drawings, formed over time by both occasional and bulk purchasing or through gifts of occasion, are catalogued for the first time. Thanks to this collection it is finally possible to cast a glance at the kind of ‘secret garden’ cultivated over time by Fiocco with untiring passion and refined taste’’. These are the words of Giuseppe Pavanello, director of the Art History Institute of the Giorgio Cini Foundation and curator of the initiative, to present the interesting exhibition entitled ‘’Tiepolo, Piazzetta, Canaletto, Piranesi, Guardi. The professor’s drawings’’, set up from May 8 to July 24 at Padua’s Eremitani Civic Museums.

Florence, April 5 - (Adnkronos) – An internet portal has been created entirely dedicated to the History of Florence (www.storiadifirenze.org), with tens of thousands of pieces of information on the cradle of the Renaissance civilization. It is a matter of an initiative created within the University of Florence through the work of a group of scholars from the Departments of Humanistics and Social Sciences, in a perspective of multidisciplinary research. The web site will be presented at 3:30pm tomorrow, Wednesday April 6, at the Gabinetto Vieusseux premises in Palazzo Strozzi, by Marcello Verga and Andrea Zorzi.

Syracuse, April 5 (Adnkronos) - ‘’Visioni della natura: tra materico ed etereo’’ (“Visions of nature: between matteristic and ethereal”) is the title of the collective painting exhibition scheduled until April 12 at “Galleria Roma” in Syracuse. Supported by the artistic direction of Corrado Brancato, the two artists Naire Feo and Ivana Mancino relate with their works how, in the symbol of the image of nature, the traces of the ethereal merge with the matteristic vision of the landscape.

Palermo, April 5 (Adnkronos) – The discovery of a work by Bagherese painter, Renato Guttuso, up until now unidentified. The painting, an oil on wood, depicts a young man of the Palermitan family of D’Anca and is dated 1938. The portrait is not present in the general catalogue of the works by the painter who died in ‘87 and is known most of all for the canvas of the Vucciria, the historical market of the Sicilian capital city. The painting was found in a corridor of the Enna Library and up until recently was considered an anonymous portrait. The authenticity of the painting was confirmed, among others, by Fabio Guttuso Carapezza, heir of the artist.

Palermo, April 5 - (Adnkronos) – The Carabinieri of the Palermo Cultural Heritage Protection Nucleus have recovered an important 18th century painting, stolen in August 2003 from the S. Francesco convent of Palermo, religious building adjacent to the famous oratory of S. Lorenzo. The painting, oil on canvas, octagonal shaped, 130 x 104cm, depicts Baby Jesus standing on a terraqueous globe around which a snake is coiled; the Baby is wrapped in a blue mantle and holds a staff with a flag on which is written ‘’Ad Maiorem dei Gloriam’’ (For the greater glory of God).

Rome, April 4 (Adnkronos) - ‘’Lucky you that when you take a pencil or brush in hand, you write always in verse! Who paints is a poet who is never forced by circumstances to write in prose? Indeed in this I consider you a brother. In the desperate premeditation to always write poetry, on every subject, even abandoning it to itself, incomplete, chaotic, new-born, where it could level it with the integrity of the text, the prose’’. These are the words of Pier Paolo Pasolini to present, in 1962, twenty drawings by Guttuso. Dart - Chiostro del Bramante, in collaboration with the Antonio Mazzotta Foundation of Milan and with the participation of the Rome City Department of Cultural Policies, has set up, until June 5, a great exhibition dedicated to Renato Guttuso (Bagheria 1912 - Rome 1987), curated by Enrico Crispolti.

Milan, April 4 (Adnkronos) - Two paintings by Giovanni Boldini will be knocked down at auction by the Finarte auction house next April 20 in Milan, during a sale dedicated to 19th century works of art. Among the 200 paintings by internationally renowned artists, Finarte will auction, first and foremost, the 1874 canvas ‘’Berthe esce per la passeggiata’’ (Berthe goes out for a walk) that represents the period in which Boldini loved to paint with an almost 18th century gracefulness and that fancy for painting “en plain air”. The second work is ‘’Riposo. Nudo di donna dalle calze scure sdraiata su un divano’’ (Rest. Female Nude with dark stockings stretched out on a divan) of 1905.

San Lorenzo del Vallo (Cs), April 4 (Adnkronos) - The poetry of John Paul II, written by the deceased Pontiff in his youth, will be collected and shortly published in ‘’La luce oltre il deserto. La poesia di un Papa’’ (The light beyond the desert. The poetry of a Pope), commissioned by the Francesco Grisi Research and Studies Centre. The poetic work of John Paul II that will be published is part of a constant study on religion and its ontological implications. The poems place man and his spasmodic search for revelation at the centre. Indicative, in that respect, are the works written by the Pontiff in 1939, in particular the passionate verses dedicated by Karol Wojtyla to his prematurely deceased mother.

Rome, April 4 - (Adnkronos) - A ‘’New Annotated Edition of the works of Dante Alighieri’’ will be ready for the seven hundredth anniversary of the death, in 1321, of the Supreme Poet. This was announced by the ‘’Pio Rajna’’ Studies Centre for literary, linguistic and philological research in Rome, chaired by professor Enrico Malato. By 2021, the international public of scholars (and also well-educated readers) will be offered a new “reference” edition of all Dante’s works, faithful in the texts, amended in light of the most recent contributions to Dantean philology, and equipped with adequate annotation.