NewsMuseums
France enforces vaccine passports for over-18s visiting museums and cultural venues
Controversial “health pass” introduced to fight a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections driven by the Delta variant
NewsExhibitions
Elba, Napoleon's Italian exile island, hosts bicentenary exhibition on the controversial French emperor
Uffizi Galleries in Florence among major lenders to show marking 200 years since his death
NewsRestitution
Italy strengthens case for return of 'Victorious Youth' bronze from Getty Museum in heritage feud that has lasted decades
Italian senate approved resolution that could pave way for restitution of the Ancient Greek bronze also known as Atleta di Fano
NewsExhibitions
Maurizio Cattelan unveils memorial to 9/11 in new Milan show—20 years after witnessing tragedy
Idea for the project was considered "too emotionally fraught" for New York by Guggenheim chief curator
NewsVenice
Italy bans cruise ships from the Venice lagoon from 1 August
Unesco and citizen action groups have campaigned for the move for years
NewsArt market
'An opportunity for bargain hunters' or a waste of time? Italy relaxes stringent export laws for Old Masters and antiques worth less than €13,500
Lower-value older works and those by artists who died less than 50 years ago no longer need an export licence to leave the country—but the process can still be slow
NewsOpenings
Italian Futurist's Rome apartment—a 'total fusion of art and life'—revealed by MaXXI museum
The small flat inhabited and decorated by 20th-century artist Giacomo Balla is open to the public for the first time as part of a new exhibition
NewsAntiquities & Archaeology
Hoard of plundered ancient art—discovered by police in a Belgian dealer's home—is returned to Italy
The almost 800 rare archaeological artefacts are now on show at the Castello Svevo in Bari
NewsItaly
Mussolini family feuds over reopened crypt of fascist Italian dictator
The controversial site has become a pilgrimage for far-right supporters
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Pressure mounts for Italy to buy Torlonia marbles—world's finest collection of Greco-Roman antiquities still in private hands
As a landmark exhibition in Rome draws to a close, government's plans for long-hidden group of ancient sculpture remain unclear
NewsPalermo
'The city is ours, not the Mafia’s': public art project in Palermo unites community against organised crime in Sicily
Four commissions, including a 30-m high mural of a Mafia-assassinated judge, have been unveiled in the southern Italian city
NewsOpenings
MaXXI L'Aquila hopes to kickstart cultural revival in earthquake-damaged Italian city
New branch of Rome's national contemporary art museum opens next week in a restored 18th-century palace
NewsMuseums & Heritage
A fatal Mafia bombing shook Florence in 1993—now the Uffizi is fixing damage to its famous Vasari corridor with memorials of the attack
Work on the 760m-long Renaissance passageway, which has been closed for safety since 2016, will be completed in May next year
NewsMuseums & Heritage
‘The Colosseum is the last thing I would spend money on’: experts angry over plans for €15m floor at Italy’s most famous site
Archaeologists object to covering the amphitheatre's unique underground space and point to more vital restoration projects in the country
NewsMuseums
Crowds flock to revamped Uffizi Galleries
Florence museum unveiled new exhibition space and recent acquisitions
NewsArt theft
Rare medieval reliquary—stolen near Siena 32 years ago—discovered at collector's home in Sicily
Carabinieri's recovery of the San Galgano collection of “unprecedented importance”
Newscoronavirus
Pope cuts pay for clerics but not for Vatican Museum employees
After pandemic revenue crash, Vatican slashes its spending but protects all jobs
InterviewPompeii
Pompeii's new director Gabriel Zuchtriegel: how archaeology moves beyond the 'elitist male gaze' of history
The German-born archaeologist tells us about his fascination with the ancient world and the need to involve visitors in the discovery process
NewsVenice Biennale
Venice town council blocks the rental of private property for the Biennales
The new time limits are shorter than the duration of the exhibitions
NewsVenice
After long complaints about pollution and blocked views, Italy bans cruise ships in Venice’s historic centre
Decision will affect partying art collectors and redirect the mass tourism routed through the Giudecca Canal
NewsMuseums
Uffizi Galleries' Botticelli masterpieces—currently kept in storage—are bound for Medici villa in the Tuscan hills
The Uffizi Diffusi project aims to "scatter" works from the Florence museum's collection around overlooked sites across Tuscany on short term loans
NewsMuseums
Museums in Poland and Germany forced to close—again—as third pandemic wave hits Europe
Some countries are operating a system based on regional coronavirus case numbers while others have gone into full lockdown
NewsAntiquities & Archaeology
Walk through the 2,000-year-old Mausoleum of Augustus, Rome's first emperor
The circular tomb—used through history as a fortress, a sculpture garden and an entertainment venue—reopens as a museum after an €11m restoration
NewsPompeii
'Lamborghini' of ancient Roman chariots unearthed near Pompeii
Experts believe that the ceremonial carriage may have been used for wedding processions
NewsMuseums
Visitor crush at Vatican museums
Tourists left “shocked and afraid” by their experiences at the museum say Covid-19 security measures were not followed
NewsExhibitions
As Italy’s museums reopen, visitors flock for last chance to see reunited Bologna masterpiece broken up 300 years ago
Last week of once in a lifetime exhibition displaying the Griffoni Polyptych—a 16-piece panel painting dating from 1472—at Bologna’s Palazzo Fava
NewsConservation & Preservation
Foundation that championed women’s art in Florence will close down after restoring 70 works by artists including Artemisia Gentileschi
The philanthropic organisation Advancing Women Artists will halt conservation projects due to lack of funds
NewsPompeii
From Roman dining to the victims of Vesuvius: Pompeii hails reopening of archaeological museum
The Antiquarium reveals treasures and recent discoveries charting the ancient Roman city's rich history before deadly volcanic eruption
FeatureContemporary art
QAnon: the Italian artists who may have inspired America's most dangerous conspiracy theory
An anonymous left-wing art group known in the 1990s as Luther Blissett are wondering what they have unwittingly helped create
NewsVenice
Culture war erupts over Venice mayor's closure of Doge's Palace and other civic museums until April
Luigi Brugnaro's "entrepreneurial" decision violates Venice's historic agreement with Italian state to keep the landmark open to the public
NewsAntiquities & Archaeology
Ancient ‘fast food’ stall comes to light during Pompeii dig
Thermopolium snack bar is revealed in full, providing "extraordinary evidence of the Mediterranean diet', says director
Newscolonialism
Racist or responsive? Italy to exhume Mussolini's colonial museum collection in 'critical' new display
Alarmed post-colonial researchers have raised concerns over plans to open Museo Italo Africano "Ilaria Alpi" in late 2021
NewsVenice Biennale
Venice Biennale pleads with Christoph Büchel to return migrant boat to Sicily
Biennale officials and Sicilian town council call on artist to honour his commitment to return controversial Barca Nostra exhibit after one year
Newscoronavirus
Uffizi director Eike Schmidt has contracted coronavirus
Museum chief is asymptomatic and says he will continue working in quarantine
NewsHeritage
Historic churches of Naples are at risk from sinkholes
Researchers have identified nine buildings that require a “quick response” and a further 57 places of worship that could suffer from future cavity collapses
NewsArt market
In search of la bella vita, Mendes Wood sets up in bucolic Italian villa
Gallery opens an exhibition of works by Cristina Canale, Vojtěch Kovařík, Paulo Nazareth and Brice Guilbert at Villa Era as clients seek a more rural art experience during pandemic
NewsAppointments & departures
Six women, one foreigner: Italy appoints 13 new museum and heritage directors
Culture minister Dario Franceschini reverses trend for appointing foreign leaders for its leading institutions
CommentVenice
How to save Venice: a five-point plan by a leading citizen
Polls show that Venetians are about to re-elect a populist mayor who promises to bring back all the tourists—but none of the other eight candidates has presented a realistic alternative
NewsMaXXI
MaXXI to open new museum in earthquake-ravaged L'Aquila in October
Contemporary art outpost of Rome museum will be housed in an 18th-century palace rebuilt with Russian government funds
NewsDisasters & destruction
Snap! Tourist takes a selfie on a 19th-century Canova sculpture—and breaks off two toes
Concerns raised about how the visitor gained access to the Paolina Bonaparte cast
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Cultural love-in between Italy and Russia sets ‘soft power’ alarm bells ringing
Growing unease as the special relationship between the two countries gains momentum during the Covid-19 crisis
NewsExhibitions
Real life art without the masks: Italian dealer sidesteps pandemic with drive-through exhibition
Massimo Minini and BelleArti are opening a show of 16 site-specific works in an underground car park in Brescia
NewsMuseums
Send the religious art in museums back to the churches, says the director of the Uffizi gallery
Eike Schmidt says up to a thousand works are languishing in state-run stores all over Italy
Newscoronavirus
Five European museum directors explain their reopening strategies
From capped visitor numbers to surgical gloves and temperature checks, here's how cultural institutions are getting ready to leave lockdown
NewsHeritage
Steve Bannon wins first major battle for medieval monastery
Italy retaliates with criminal prosecution of right-wing religious group funded by US President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist
NewsExhibitions
Major Raphael show in Rome returns for three-month run
Securing the loan extensions was “really easy” says director of the Scuderie del Quirinale
NewsMuseums
Italian museums start to reopen from today after €55bn lifeline from government
National spending package includes emergency support for state museums, arts organisations and cultural businesses
NewsVenice
Explosion in chemicals factory threatens Venice with cloud of toxic smoke
The fire is now under control, but the mayor warns people to stay indoors and keep their windows closed
NewsMuseums
Museums in Belgium and Italy to reopen mid-May under phased lifting of lockdown
Belgian museum director says his institution is “ready to serve as a test room”
CommentReligious art
Pope Francis, his crucifix and the Virgin Mary: miraculous or merely traditional?
Art history removes the numinous from art. At the Vatican’s Covid-19 blessing we saw it invoked again
NewsCommissions
Inspired by Italy's spontaneous singing, museums commission artists to make 'balcony art' during coronavirus crisis
Fourteen artists have been asked by the L’Internationale museum group to participate in the project, which supports artists with "quick, modest commissions"
NewsArts funding
'Save Italian culture from suffocation': art world leaders sign petition calling for national art fund in the wake of coronavirus crisis
Signatories include leaders at Rome's MaXXI Museum and Venice’s civic museums as well as the artist Paola Pivi
Newscoronavirus
Take a virtual tour of once-in-a-lifetime Raphael show in Rome that closed after four days due to coronavirus
Video is part of Italy's "Culture never stops!" initiative providing online access to cultural and heritage sites
Commentcoronavirus
Letter from Italy: the churches—open, but without services—are the only place to see art
The Art Newspaper's founder-editor Anna Somers Cocks on the impact of Covid-19 on Turin, where she is in lockdown
Podcast
Coronavirus: dispatches from Italy and China
We speak to our journalists Anna Somers Cocks and Lisa Movius about their experiences of lockdown. Plus, we begin a new feature—Lonely Works—where we look at individual works of art that are now hanging unseen in galleries. Produced in association with Bonhams, auctioneers since 1793
NewsObituaries
Vittorio Gregotti, the last modern architect of Venice, dies of coronavirus aged 92
He designed many prestigious buildings in Italy and internationally and led the visual arts section of the Venice Biennale twice in the 1970s
Newscoronavirus
Venice canals appear cleaner amid coronavirus lockdown
Images of clearer water and returning wildlife to the Italian city are being posted on social media
Newscoronavirus
Coronavirus in Italy: Ai Weiwei criticised for 'insensitive' pasta meme and Raphael blockbuster closes
An emergency decree means that all museums in the country are on lock down until 3 April
Newscoronavirus
Coronavirus travel restrictions force Venice Architecture Biennale to postpone opening until August
The biennial's 17th edition will now only run for three months rather than six
NewsArt market
Old Master scandal: Italy rejects European arrest warrant for painter connected to forgery case
Lino Frongia was arrested in September as part of a major investigation involving works purportedly by Lucas Cranach, Frans Hals, Parmigianino, Gentileschi and Bronzino
Newscoronavirus
Coronavirus: Louvre closes while Italian museums reopen following government green light
Italian officials say cultural institutions can open to the public so long as they ensure “visitors respect a distance of at least a metre between each other”
NewsExhibitions
Uffizi scientific committee resigns in dispute over Raphael loan
The committee had advised against moving Raphael’s portrait of Pope Leo X; the museum loaned it to Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale regardless
NewsItaly
Steve Bannon wins again in battle against Italian ministry of culture
President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist wants to set up a nationalist bootcamp in an Italian monastery
Newscoronavirus
Mass museum shutdown in northern Italy—including Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Fondazione Prada—as coronavirus spreads
Public and private institutions in Venice, Milan and Turin will stay closed for at least a week as more than 200 cases of Covid-2019 are confirmed
NewsRestitution
Italy hands Nazi-looted Renaissance sculpture from the Uffizi to Germany
Andrea della Robbia’s Mary Magdalene was acquired by Hermann Göring in 1941
NewsRaphael
For this week only: unrepeatable chance to see Raphael’s tapestries with Michelangelo’s ceiling
The Vatican Museums celebrate Raphael’s 500th anniversary by hanging his tapestries in the Sistine Chapel for which they were created
NewsExhibitions
British dealer James Butterwick cleared of defamation for describing Russian Avant-garde works in Mantua exhibition as fake
Italian judge said his opinion of the 2013 show was based on his “proven and recognised competence and experience”
NewsMuseums
Uffizi wins legal battle against 'cybersquatter' owner of Uffizi.com domain name
The unofficial websites were used to sell tickets to the Florentine museum at inflated prices
NewsPhotography
Vast Fratelli Alinari photographic archive saved by Tuscan government
Tuscany has acquired agency collection and will create a new foundation in Florence to preserve its more than five million items
NewsVenice Biennale
Film producer Roberto Cicutto replaces Paolo Baratta as Venice Biennale president
He will be overseeing the Italian city's art biennial as well as film, dance, theatre and music festivals
ReviewBooks
Born of hate and contempt, how the Bargello's extraordinary collection of medieval ivories came to be
Book tells the tale of how Italian museum amassed such a vast array of important sculptures thanks to Frenchman Louis-Claude Carrand
NewsPolitics
Culture ministry failed to vet right-wing religious group close to Steve Bannon
Decision to lease Italian medieval monastery to an organisation affiliated with President Trump’s former chief strategist is blamed on staff shortages
NewsVenice
Where are the flood barriers, cry the citizens of Venice after its second worst flood since records began
More evidence has emerged that the flood barriers have serious technical problems
NewsConservation & Preservation
Renaissance woman Plautilla Nelli's Last Supper unveiled after restoration in Florence
Seven-metre painting offers "canvas proof" that self-taught nun ran an all-female workshop in her convent 450 years ago
NewsLeonardo da Vinci
Green light for Leonardo's Vitruvian Man to go to Louvre
An Italian appellate court has overturned the ban on the loan of the celebrated drawing
NewsMuseums
Italy extends Eike Schmidt’s leadership of Uffizi for four years
Sylvain Bellenger is reappointed in Capodimonte, Cristiana Collu remains at Rome Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna
NewsPompeii
Fresco of two fighting gladiators discovered in Pompeii
Italy's culture minister Dario Franceschini says the find shows the site is an "inexhaustible mine for archaeological research"
AnalysisArt crime
It’s 50 years since Caravaggio’s Nativity was stolen in Palermo: have the police been chasing red herrings all this time?
New enquiries suggest a US or Swiss connection through the mafia heroin trade
NewsCultural exchange
Louvre secures key Italian loans for Leonardo retrospective
The Vitruvian Man—normally only shown for a few weeks every six years—will travel from Venice’s Gallerie dell'Accademia to Paris
ArchiveLaw
Italy sues for return of antique pottery which they claim to own under national law because they are objects of archaeological interest.
The US has filed a complaint in a federal district court to determine who owns 230 antiquities produced in ancient Italian pottery workshops
NewsGiuliano Ruffini
Old Master fakes scandal: warrant issued for dealer Giuliano Ruffini as painter Lino Frongia arrested
Suspect has been jailed in northern Italy over case that has embroiled major international museums and dealers
NewsObituaries
Marisa Merz, only woman linked to Arte Povera group, dies aged 93
The intensely private artist won the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 2013 Venice Biennale
NewsPolitics
Plan to merge Uffizi and Accademia in Florence stokes row over Italian museums reform
Critics say the move by Italy's populist coalition government will compromise the autonomy of museums
ReviewExhibitions
This carefully selected exhibition of the Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo is small and perfectly formed
The MA curatorial show at the Barber Institute, Birmingham, challenges many of our assumptions
ReviewBooks
Michelangelo for beginners, and a new view of the master’s bronzes
Three new books offer fresh angles on the Renaissance master
NewsArt & Technology
Get the app and the church door will open to you
How often on our walks do we get to an enticing old church, only to find that it’s locked? Mobile phones provide the 'open sesame'
AnalysisVenice
Where does the cruise ship crash leave Venice?
The mayor demands that liners use other channels to enter the lagoon but this solution also poses problems
NewsPolitics
Italy blocks Steve Bannon’s plans for nationalist bootcamp in medieval monastery
Despite eviction procedures, the US strategist’s collaborator says they will fight to stay in the 13th-century building
ReviewVenice Biennale 2019
We've chosen the best of the art in Venice, now here's the worst
We’ve seen a lot of exhibitions in the city so you don’t have to
NewsArt market
Italian galleries no longer have to pay artist royalties on primary market sales
New guidelines are published after six year negotiation, but galleries will have to provide written contracts with artists when acting on consignment
NewsItaly
Battle over Bannon’s nationalist bootcamp in Italian monastery
Protests against the right-wing group’s takeover of a 13th-century cloister are growing
NewsControversies
Gaetano Pesce's anti-patriarchy sculpture outrages feminists in Milan
Work created for Milan Design Week perpetuates violence against women, critics say
PreviewArt fairs
Big-hitters join Miart for first time
Hauser & Wirth, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac and other well-known galleries have joined the Milan fair
NewsRestitution
Italy and China team up to fight looting
During president Xi Jinping's visit to Rome, Italy announced that it will return 796 artefacts to China
NewsDisasters & destruction
Tributes pour in for Italian marine archaeologist Sebastiano Tusa who died in Ethiopian Airlines plane crash
He was was an expert on the battle of Egadi of 241BC
NewsArt market
Enigmatic Gino De Dominicis subject of complex fakes investigation in Italy
Market for Italian artist’s works slows as police investigation into alleged forgeries scares off some collectors
CommentVenice
The damnation of Venice: locals are being systematically driven out by officials who are selling off sites for tourism
Venetians are leaving the city in thousands because rents are unaffordable, yet over 11% of social housing stands empty
Anna Somers Cocks