Italy

Despite surface dirt and other condition issues, a painting of Naples drew a dramatic bidding competition at a recent auction in Rome.

The Biennale Internationale dell’Antiquario di Firenze (Florence Biennale) opens this month for its 31st edition – celebrating 60 years of showcasing and selling art and antiques in the city.

This map of Milan will feature in the sale of books and manuscripts to be held in the city by Il Ponte on September 24.

Edged weapons from the East were also an important part of the sale held by Czerny (20% buyer’s premium) in Sarzano, Italy, on June 16.

A group of illuminated manuscripts valued at £100,000 that were stolen from a London auction house in 2016 have been recovered in Italy.

Two suits of armour that emerged in recent auctions at Continental salerooms.

A rare 11th century Portolan chart on vellum will be offered by the Il Ponte auction house in a sale of books and manuscripts in Milan on January 22.

Italy, like many European countries whose economies were ravaged during the war, had to face the challenge of picking itself up and starting afresh once hostilities were over.

An art dealership that sold a portrait of Napoleon’s brother-in-law to The Frick Collection in New York has strongly criticised Italy’s decision to retrospectively rescind its export licence.

The owner of a rediscovered painting attributed to Giotto has lost a High Court battle over its export from the EU.

This Allegory of Spring by the 17th century Italian artist Pietro Liberi (Padua 1605-Venice 1687) is one of the works in the May 21 auction of Old Master paintings and furnishings that opens Babuino’s next auction series in Rome.

One highlight of a February 20 sale held in Italy was the handsome, armorially bound 1694 first edition of the Swiss born architect Carlo Fontana’s Templum Vaticanum.

Paris was an important destination for artists in the 19th and 20th centuries and the city gathered in creatives from all across Europe.