Italian artists

NEW YORK - If you put the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a blender, you might end up with something like TEFAF New York.

Leonardo da Vinci, the painter of the "Mona Lisa" and a symbol of the Renaissance, was only half-Italian, his mother a slave from the Caucasus, new research revealed on March 14.

Da Vinci's mother had long been thought a Tuscan peasant, but University of Naples professor Carlo Vecce, a specialist in the Old Master, believes the truth is more complicated.

Regarded as a pioneer of the Arte Povera movement, Italy's Pier Paolo Calzolari is showing work for the sixth time at the Bernier/Eliades Gallery (bernier-eliades.com), through January 26. Titled "Demons and Dew," his new show is described by the curator as "a meditation on the transience and delicate beauty of everyday life."

Home of the Caryatids

It is admired the world over as an exquisite depiction of maternal grief. But Michelangelo's "Pieta" has overshadowed two other moving sculptures on the same subject by the Renaissance giant.

That is why Florence's Opera del Duomo museum in Italy is putting on display together for the first time all three versions of the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of her son Jesus Christ.

A first of its kind in Turkey bringing technology, science and art together, X Media Art Museum (XMAM) is now open to welcome visitors.

A rare Botticelli painting depicting Jesus Christ will go up for auction on Jan. 27 at Sotheby's in New York, a year after a record $92 million was paid for a work by the Italian Renaissance master.

A villa in the heart of Rome that features the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio is being put up for auction by court order after the home was restored by its last occupants: A Texas-born princess and her late husband, a member of one of Rome's aristocratic families.

Portraits of acid attack victims have gone on show at Italy's Uffizi art gallery alongside a sculpture by Baroque master Bernini of his lover whose face he disfigured out of jealousy.

The exhibition at the prestigious Florence museum aims to show the horror of violence against women - starting with one of the world's greatest sculptors.

The Embassy of Italy in Turkey has brought to Ankara an important exhibition of Italian contemporary art that represents a rich kaleidoscope of artistic trends and techniques of established masters and emerging young artists.