ARTS GUIDE SHOWS IN ITALY ABROAD

AREZZO - Museo Statale d'Arte Medievale e Moderna: Piero della Francesca masterpieces including his first painting, a Madonna and Child, missing for 50 years until its recent discovery. Other attractions are dyptych of Urbino rulers Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, which has left the Uffizi for the first time; the Louvre's portrait of Rimini lord Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta; St Jerome from the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice; a Madonna from Venice's Cini Foundation; and the Madonna di Senigallia from Urbino. Show combined with tour of surrounding villages where Piero (1412-1492) made his name in the 1430s including Sansepolcro with its Madonna della Misericordia polyptych and Resurrection fresco, and Monterchi's Madonna del Parto. Until July 22.

Hotel in Florence

FLORENCE - Uffizi: Albrecht Durer Engraver; the show features 180 prints and drawings created by the German artist (1471-1528) and his Italian contemporaries. The exhibit coincides with a major Durer show in Rome. Until June 10.
- Palazzo Strozzi: Florence and Paul Cezanne; of some 100 works on display, around 20 are by the French artist, including some of his most famous paintings: Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair, The Bathers and House on the Marne, a very rare loan from the White House. The show also includes paintings by some of Cezanne's contemporaries, such as Pissarro, Van Gogh, Henri Matisse and John Singer Sargent. Until July 29.

FORLI' - San Domenico Museum: Silvestro Lega; the exhibit spotlights an important collection of work by one of the leading lights of Italy's 19th-century Macchiaioli movement. Over 100 of Lega's paintings are featured, including many which have never been displayed before. Until June 27.

LIVORNO - Centro Arte Guastalla Gallery: Marc Chagall, 80 etchings from the 1920s and 30s, when the Russian master was at the peak of his powers. Until June 24 MILAN - Palazzo Reale: Kandinsky and Italian Art; the show looks at how Wassily Kandinsky's work in the first decade of the 20th century shaped the development of a group of Italian artists in the 1930s and 1940s. Until June 24.

MODENA - Foro Boario: Vermeer, the Young Woman at a Virginal and the Painters of Delft, 30 works by 17th-century Dutch masters. Until July 15.

PADUA - Palazzo Zabarella: Giorgio de Chirico; the show brings together over 100 paintings, many of them on loan from abroad. It aims to illustrate the complexity and contradictions of de Chirico's career over 60 years, rather than merely focusing on his earlier, more famous, metaphysical paintings. Uuntil May 27.

PARMA - Magnani Rocca Foundation: Mario Sironi, first look at neglected Metaphysical works of the once-reviled Futurist painter. Until July 15.

RAVENNA - Museum of Art: Felice Casorati: Painting Silence; this major exhibition celebrates one of Italy's most enigmatic modern artists. It features around 100 works on loan from museums and private collections. Until July 15.

ROME - Scuderie del Quirinale: Albrecht Durer and Italy; the show features over 200 works by the German artist, the locals who inspired him, and the Italians he in turn inspired. Durer masterpieces have been loaned by museums in Vienna, Washington, Madrid and London as well as Germany.
- Vittoriano: Marc Chagall; a major show featuring 180 works on loan from the world's leading museums and important private collectors. Curated by Claudia Zevi and Chagall's niece Meret Meyer, it focuses on the twin influences on Chagall's art of his native Russia and Judaism. Until July 1.
- Colosseum: Eros; this show brings together a series of outstanding artworks which seek to shed light on the familiar yet enigmatic figure of Eros. Organizers say the show is an opportunity to look at the liberty and spontaneity with which the Greeks lived their sexuality - homosexual relations included. The show also looks at how the image of Eros evolved over the centuries, gradually 'declining' into the decorative putto - the podgy, winged baby Cupid of Italian Renaissance art. Until September 18.
- National Gallery of Modern Art: Arturo Martini; the show features over 100 sculptures representing key moments in Martini's artistic development. His work used traditional materials, such as bronze, stone and terracotta, and harked back to classical and medieval themes. Yet at the same time, Martini forged an innovative, sweeping style that was considered entirely original. Until May 13.
- Quirinale Palace: Masterpieces of European Art; a selection of Europe's finest and most representative artworks is on show at the official residence of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. Napolitano asked the leaders of the 27 EU countries to each lend a masterpiece that is emblematic of their history. The result is a selection of works ranging from the Stone Age to the 20th century, including giants such as Turner, Titian, Velasquez and van Dyck. Until May 20.
- Chiostro del Bramante: Annibale Carracci; this major exhibit on the Baroque master showcases 160 works, including 70 of his best-known paintings. The show is divided into eight sections and includes self-portraits, altarpieces, mythological scenes and nearly figureless landscapes, a fairly new idea at the time. Until May 6.

TURIN - Palazzo Madama: Alexander's Heirs in Asia, From Seleucia to Gandhara; the exhibition highlights the massive cultural influence Alexander the Great's conquests had in Western Asia after his death; the show concentrates on archaeological finds from the fourth century BC to the third century AD uncovered at the city of Seleucia on the Tigris in present-day Iraq and at the Swat Valley, in what was the Gandhara kingdom. Until May 27.

VENICE - Palazzo Franchetti: Self Portrait; some 70 masterpieces on loan from Florence's Uffizi Gallery are on show; the works, dating from the Renaissance onwards, include self-portraits by Raphael, Tintoretto, Velazquez, Bernini, Chagall and Balla. Until May 6 - Museo Correr: Sargent and Venice; John Singer Sargent visited Venice more than 10 times between 1879 and 1913 and its palaces, churches, squares and canals feature in over 150 of his paintings. Around 60 are on display at this major show. Until July 22.