The town of Senigallia in southern Le Marche was declared the most energy efficient in Italy at the Klimaenergy Fair in Bolzano.  The town’s administration has, in recent years, installed 4,000 square metres of solar panels on the roofs of houses, warehouses and public and private offices besides installing 983.77 kilowatts of photovoltaic panels in the town, including ground-mounted systems.

Receiving the prize, the Mayor of Senigallia said his town had demonstrated what a committed administration can do with regard to using renewable energy sources. He said that the town had applied the Itaca Protocol on “green building” and , with the water and gas supplier Multiservizi, will be installing small hydroelectric systems in suburban aqueducts. He added that his administration is determined to pursue green energy policies in the future.

The towns of Torre San Giorgio, Vipiteno and Bolzano also received awards for their energy policies at the ceremony, organised by Legambiente and Kilmaenergy.

Source:   Italy Mag

(ANSA) – Rome, March 26 – The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy’s art exhibitions:

BASSANO DEL GRAPPA – Museo Civico: 22 works by 16th-century master Jacopo da Ponte, show marks 500th anniversary of birth; until June 13.

BRESCIA – Museo di Santa Giulia: Inca, Origins and Mysteries of the Civilisation of Gold; 250 artefacts, until June 27.

CASTELFRANCO VENETO – Casa del Giorgione: home-town show marking 500th anniversary of Giorgione’s death; 130 works by Veneto painter and other Renaissance masters including Bellini, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian; until April 11.

COMO – Villa Olmo: Pieter Paul Rubens, 25 works plus 40 by painters of his circle including Van Dyck, Jordaens, Thulden; until July 25: FERRARA – Palazzo Diamanti: 20th Century Masterpieces from the Maeght Foundation; some 100 works by Matisse, Kandinsky, Chagall, Miro’, Leger, Calder, Giacometti, Bonnard, Braque and others who showed their work at the gallery of Aime’ Maeght in Paris; until June 2.

FORLI’ – Musei di San Domenico: Flowers: Nature and Symbol from the 17th Century to Van Gogh; 100 works from international museums including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Delacroix, Courbet, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne and Klimt; until June 20.

GENOA – Villa del Principe: Genoa’s most celebrated palazzo celebrates its reopening with a show gathering 80 landscapes in the Doria Pamphilij collections including Caravaggio’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt; until September 26.

MILAN – Palazzo Reale: Goya and modern masters, 184 works by Spanish great and later artists including Miro’, Picasso, Bacon and Pollock; until June 27.

- Triennale: Roy Lichtenstein, 100 works from the Guggenheim, Whitney, Vienna’s Moderner Kunst museums; until May 30.

- Pinacoteca di Brera: Carlo Crivelli, San Domenico Triptych, works from Marche and loans from major world museums; until March 28.

- Palazzo Reale: Egon Schiele and his Viennese contemporaries; 80 works on loan from Vienna’s Leopold Museum; until June 6.

NAPLES – six city museums: The Return of the Baroque, 350 works and 27 tours; until April 11.

PADUA – Museo degli Eremitani: Caravaggio, Lotto, Ribera, 50 works from the collection of art historian Roberto Longhi; until March 28.

PARMA – Three city venues show Parma University’s huge archive on 20th century Italian art; Palazzo del Governatore (art, photography), Galleria San Ludovico (fashion) and Scuderie della Pilotta (architecture and design), until April 25.

PIACENZA – Fondazione Ricci Oddi: 19th-Century Tuscan Painting, Macchiaioli and beyond, 40 works; until May 2.

ROME – Palazzo Massimo: Treasures from Morgantina; 16 ancient Greek masterpieces from southern Italian site returned by Met; until May 23.

- Musei Capitolini: The Age of Conquest: The Lure of Greek Art in Rome; masterpieces looted from Greece between the third and first centuries BC; until September 5.

- Scuderie del Quirinale: Caravaggio, 24 masterpieces from Italy and abroad including Musicians from the Met, Lute Player from the Hermitage, Amor Vincit Omnia from Berlin, Uffizi’s Bacchus, David With the Goliath’s Head from Borghese, Fruit Bowl from Biblioteca Ambrosiana; till June 13, first of string of events marking 400 years since his death.

- Fondazione Roma Museo: Edward Hopper, 170 works mostly from New York’s Whitney Museum including The Sheridan Theatre, New York Interior, Pennsylvania Coal Town, South Carolina Morning, Summer Interior, Morning Sun, Second Story Sunlight, A Woman in the Sun and Girlie Show; until June 13.

- Vittoriano: From Corot to Manet, The Symphony of Nature; 170 Impressionist works including Corbet, Boudin, Pissaro, Sisley; until June 29.

- Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo: The Secret of Marble, Painted Marble From Ascoli Satriano; 11 Ancient Greek works from the ancient city of Ausculum in Apulia including griffins returned by Getty Museum in 2007; until April 18.

SIENA – Santa Maria della Scala, Opera della Metropolitana and Pinacoteca Nazionale: ‘From Jacopo della Quercia to Donatello, Early Renaissance Art in Siena’; 300 works including 20 polyptychs reconstructed for the occasion, 25 restored works, loans from around the world; until July 10.

ROVERETO – Mart: From the Stage to the Canvas, 200 paintings depicting theatre productions by such artists as David, Delacroix, Fussli, Degas, Ingres and many others; until May 23.

TREVISO – Casa dei Carraresi: The Secrets of the Forbidden City, Matteo Ricci at the Ming Court; until May 9.

VIGEVANO – Castello Visconteo: Leonardo da Vinci’s output during his time in Lombardy; ‘virtual codex’ on flying, botany, mathematics, weaponry, astronomy, engineering and architecture; until April 5.

photo: one of the Jacopo della Quercia pieces in Siena

The Le Marche hills are alive with the sound of ……… Hollywood’s two time Oscar winner, Dustin Hoffman!!   Two short films have been produced where the actor recites poetry from the region’s most celebrated Poet, Gacomo Leopardi’s [1798 – 1837]. infamous poem L’Infinito, against a backdrop of some of the region’s most idyllic countryside.   Hoffman’s love for the Le Marche region goes back 37 years when filming in Ascoli Piceno.

All that can be said to add to his testament, is come see for yourself the beauty of the region which truly has everything to offer, beautiful coastline, medieval hill top villages perched high, a wonderful national park, dramatic mountains capped with snow in winter and perfect for skiing.  What else you might ask……….this combined with a country that is  synonomous with incredible culture, architecture, land and seascapes, wine and mouth watering diishes and most of all, the incredible friendliness of the people….I would say you have it all in one package.

Wishing you all a Buon Viaggio to Le Marche, see you there !!

Raphael

(ANSA) – Rome, December 31 – The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy’s art exhibitions:

BRESCIA – Museo di Santa Giulia: Inca, Origins and Mysteries of the Civilisation of Gold; 250 artefacts, until June 27.

CASTELFRANCO VENETO – Casa del Giorgione: home-town show marking 500th anniversary of Giorgione’s death; 130 works by Veneto painter and other Renaissance masters including Bellini, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian; until April 11.

CATANIA – Palazzo Valle: Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana; until March 14.

FERRARA – Palazzo dei Diamanti: Boldini In The Paris Of The Impressionists; show on Ferrara-born artist’s ‘beau monde’ portraiture years from 1871 to 1886; until January 10.

MILAN – Pinacoteca di Brera: Carlo Crivelli, San Domenico Triptych, works from Marche and loans from major world museums; until March 28.

- Palazzo Reale: Edward Hopper, 160 works; until January 24.

- same venue: Japan. Power and Splendour: 1569-1868, showcases 100 masterpieces on rare loan from Japan; until March 8.

- Triennale: Frank Gehry, projects since Guggenheim in Bilbao (1997); until January 10.

- same venue: Sandro Chia; until January 15.

- Castello Sforzesco: La Monaca di Monza; Hayez and other painters capture Manzoni’s famed ‘Promessi Sposi’ character and the woman she was based on, Spanish aristocrat Marianna de Leyda; until March 21.

MONTECATINI TERME – Polo Espositivo Terme Tamerici: 19th century masters including Fattori, Lega, Signorini and Banti; until January 19.

NAPLES – six city museums: The Return of the Baroque, 350 works and 27 tours; until April 11.

PADUA – Museo degli Eremitani: Caravaggio, Lotto, Ribera, 50 works from the collection of art historian Roberto Longhi; until March 28.

- Palazzo Zabarella: Telemaco Signorini, show comparing ‘Macchiaioli’ master with contemporaries like Degas, Van Gogh and Courbet; until January 31.

- Palazzo della Ragione: installation by Zaha Hadid; until March 1.

PASSARIANO – Villa Manin: The Age of Courbet and Monet; 134 works, until March 7.

PAVIA – Castello Visconteo: From Velasquez to Murillo, 50 masterpieces from the Hermitage; until January 17.

PERUGIA – Palazza Penna: ‘Umbria Veloce’ (Fast Umbria), show marking 100th anniversary of Futurism with paintings, self-portraits, posters, documents; until February 7.

PIACENZA – Fondazione Ricci Oddi: 19th-Century Tuscan Painting, Macchiaioli and beyond, 40 works; until May 2.

PISA – Palazzo Blu: Chagall And The Mediterranean; some 170 works; until January 17.

RIMINI – Castel Sismondo: From Rembrandt to Gauguin and Picasso; 65 masterpieces from Boston Museum of Fine Arts; until March 14.

ROME – Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo: The Secret of Marble, Painted Marble From Ascoli Satriano; 11 Ancient Greek works from the ancient city of Ausculum in Apulia including griffins returned by Getty Museum in 2007; until April 18.

- Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna: Sandro Chia, 61 works by Transavanguardia artists; until February 28.

- Vittoriano: Africa, A New History; 80 works by 30 contemporary artists from 20 countries; until January 17.

- same venue: Dada and Surrealism: 500 works from world museums including Man Ray, Duchamp, Picabia, Wood, Moreau, Munch, Miro’, Arp, De Chirico and Picasso; until February 7.

- Chiostro del Diamante: Boldini, De Nittis, Zandomenighi, other Italian painters in Paris; until March 14.

- Palazzo Incontro: Galileo show marking 400th anniversary of his first observations of the night sky; until January 6.

- Palazzo delle Esposizioni: Alexander Calder; until February 14.

- Galleria Borghese: Caravaggio-Bacon: ten works by Italian master compared to 20 by British painter; marks 400 years since Caravaggio’s death; until January 24.

- Scuderie del Quirinale: Painting in Ancient Rome, The Colours of Empire; landscapes, still lifes, stage decor, street painting, portraits and mythological subjects from 1st century AD to late antiquity; until January 17.

- Capitoline Museums: Michelangelo’s architectural works in Rome, 140 sketches, models and contemporary documents; until February 21.

TREVISO – Casa dei Carraresi: The Secrets of the Forbidden City, Matteo Ricci at the Ming Court; until May 9.

VERONA – Palazzo della Gran Guardia: Corot and Modern Art, Souvenirs and Impressions; 100 works in collaboration with Louvre; until March 7.

VIGEVANO – Castello Visconteo: Leonardo da Vinci’s output during his time in Lombardy; ‘virtual codex’ on flying, botany, mathematics, weaponry, astronomy, engineering and architecture; until April 5.

photo: scroll by Utogawa Toyokuni (1769-1825), Courtesan admiring Cherry Blossoms