Cultural delights of autumnal Italy

Home to a developed cultural milieu for millennia and a European leader during the Renaissance, the Italian peninsular has long occupied a prized position on the cultural stage.

This autumn is no different, with a selection of exhibitions, events and festivals celebrating the country's creativity in its many guises. And with Italy just a short plane trip from Britain, holidaymakers will have little excuse for not checking out some of the finest the country has to offer.

Here travelbite.co.uk examines what is on offer over the coming season.

Cinematic festivities

After the first two extraordinarily popular editions, the Internazionale del Film di Roma Festival will be back from October 22nd to 31st 2008 with films, retrospectives, meetings, exhibitions, concerts and major international stars.

The entire city of Rome will provide the magnificent backdrop to the event, with the Auditorium Parco della Musica and the Cinema Village acting as its nerve centre.

Innovations already announced for the third edition include L'Occhio sul Mondo – an event focused on Brazil, with films, music, exhibitions and meetings. There will also be a day dedicated to Tibetan cinema and documentaries.

Culinary celebrations

First up on the culinary agenda is the Terra Madre Network, which will bring together food communities, cooks, academics and youth delegates for four days to work towards increasing small-scale, traditional, and sustainable food production.

The event hosts food producers and workers from around the world, giving them the opportunity to discuss the major themes of food production. Together they share and compare the diverse and complex issues that underline what 'high-quality food' means to them: issues of environmental resources and planetary equilibrium, as well as aspects of taste, worker’s dignity, and consumer safety.

It takes place in Turin between October 23rd and 27th 2008.

Next up, the great International Show of Flavour, hosted by Slow Food, is back in Turin this year.

An exhibit-cum-market, the event is entirely dedicated to quality wine and gastronomy, showcasing the best products from every corner of the planet – a magnet for professionals, journalists, and food lovers alike.

On a slightly smaller scale, the 78th International White Truffle Fair runs from October 4th to November 9th.

The fair is dedicated to the truffle and is accompanied by many other events, of which the 'City of Alba' Art Prize, hot air balloons, traditional donkey races, wine festival, and celebrations for the Alba White Truffle Award are among the most eagerly anticipated.

Sculpture, illustration, painting

The hamlet of Orta, on the lake of the same name, hosts 16 monumental sculptures by Arnaldo Pomodoro, one of Italy’s most famous contemporary artists and recent recipient of awards from the International Sculpture Center in Hamilton and the Art Museum in Tel Aviv.

The exhibit, which runs until November 9th, gives its visitors the chance to discover this magic hamlet on the lake while enjoying the works by Pomodoro.

Over in Venice, the first exhibit of the works of George Barbier, fashion illustrator and set designer who had a significant impact on the art deco movement, is expected to draw the crowds.

The works on display from the artist, such as the 'black panther' symbol of the House of Cartier, detail his creative evolution. The exhibition is rich in historical references and includes a section on theatre and cinema with sketches of costumes and sets.

The Birth of Art Deco exhibition runs until January 5th.

Heading back to Milan, the Triennale Bovisa hosts an exhibit of Guido Crepax and Valentina, his most famous character created in 1965.

Many of her characteristics, from her face to her personality, are inspired by Louise Brooks - the silent movie diva protagonist of Lulù by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.

Valentina represents the spirit of her time, the cultural and political world of Italian society undergoing the radical change of the years from the ‘60s to the ‘80s.

The multimedia installment of the exhibition is also divided in rooms or sections by projections on the walls, allowing visitors to physically access Valentina’s fantasy world.

The Italian Art between Tradition and Revolution Exhibition will also showcase the most important works of Italian artists from 1968 to the present this autumn.

Including the work of 107 artists, with more than 200 works of art, the exhibition is arranged by theme rather than in chronological order, and hints at overcoming tradition in search of inspiration for new ideas in an effort to conquer an audience looking to become more acquainted with contemporary art.

The event continues until March 22nd 2009.

Back at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, the first great retrospective dedicated to Seurat, Signac and Neo-impressionism showcases 70 works which detail the evolution of the movement, which heavily influenced the artistic production of Parisian painters between the end of 1800 and 1910.

The evolution of the movement and its propagation are presented through the works of Camille and Lucien Pissarro, Maximilien Luce and several more all the way to Italian neo-impressionists such as Longoni, Previati and Russolo.

Architecture

Finally, the Ancient Cities of Lazio Exhibition tells the story of the Etruscan civilization in Lazio, describing its extraordinary level of achievement through the development of its main urban centres at Veio, Cerveteri, Vulci and Tarquinia.

The four cities began life with many of their more ancient features stemming from common roots, only later going on gradually to differentiate from one another both in terms of their artistic output and in more general terms of culture and worship, of life style and of trading practices.

The second part of the exhibition is devoted to the ties between these ancient cities and Rome itself, highlighting the huge influence that the Etruscan civilization had on the Roman world, on its religious practices and on its symbols of power, pointing to continuity but also to the differences between the two cultures.

Getting to Italy

While a host of airlines presently fly between the UK and Italy, this autumn Ryanair is launching six new routes from Turin-Casalle airport.

The no-frills carrier will now fly to Shannon, Glasgow, Edinburg, Liverpool, East-Midlands and Bournemouth, weekly starting from December 20th.

Chris O'Toole