LONDON.- The highly acclaimed exhibition of 16th- and 17th-century Italian art in the Royal Collection comes to Scotland in two parts in 2008 and 2009. It celebrates the artistic legacy of the Stuart kings, Charles I and his son, Charles II, whose taste profoundly influenced the character of the British Royal Collection.

Part one presents 32 paintings and 42 drawings from the period of the Italian Renaissance, including works by many of the greatest masters of 16th-century Venice, Florence and Rome. Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Tintoretto, and paintings by Giovanni Bellini, Lorenzo Costa and Titian are among those brought together from royal palaces and residences across Britain.

The Renaissance was one of the most exciting episodes in European art. Early in the 16th century, the period known as the High Renaissance, artists combined the study of nature with a new emphasis on the human body and classical ideals of beauty. In Venice and the north of Italy, the sensuous and naturalistic possibilities of the oil medium were exploited by artists such as Titian, Lorenzo Lotto, Palma Vecchio and Jacopo Bassano to create ravishing effects of colour and light. In Florence and Rome, Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo and Parmigianino employed complex, artificial poses and striking colour combinations to produce works of sophisticated elegance and an often unsettling intensity - a style known as Mannerism.

Described by the painter Peter Paul Rubens as ‘the greatest amateur of paintings among the princes of the world’, Charles I built up a collection of Italian masters to rival that of any European court of the period. In 1623, when Prince of Wales, he embarked for Spain to woo Philip IV’s sister, the Infanta María. He returned with neither bride nor Anglo-Spanish alliance, but he had seen one of the finest collections of Italian paintings in existence and resolved to create something like it in Britain.

To achieve this, Charles I relied upon a network of advisers, dealers, agents and ambassadors across Europe. Others exchanged paintings with the king or made outright gifts in the hope of obtaining political advantage. Charles’s court gained prestige through connoisseurship, as the king’s reputation as a man of discerning taste spread across Europe.

Charles I’s purchase of a substantial part of the collection of the Dukes of Mantua in 1628-32 transformed his collection at a single stroke. English art lovers had long known of the splendours of the Gonzaga court and especially admired the work of Giulio Romano, the dominant architect, painter and ‘design consultant’ in Mantua, and the only contemporary artist mentioned by Shakespeare. Among the many treasures of the Gonzaga collection came The Holy Family by Dosso Dossi, which is included in the exhibition.

Most of Charles I’s collection was sold after his execution in 1649, but a significant number of paintings were reclaimed or bought back by Charles II after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Among the Renaissance paintings recovered were the enigmatic Portrait of a Lady in Green by Bronzino and The Holy Family with St Jerome by Correggio. Charles II was also given a handsome group of pictures by the States of Holland, including Lorenzo Lotto’s Portrait of Andrea Odoni and Titian’s Portrait of Jacopo Sannazaro.

Charles II was the first British monarch to collect artists’ drawings, which he probably kept in his private ‘cabinet’ rooms at Whitehall. The examples in the exhibition – by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and other masters of the Italian Renaissance – are in a wide range of media, including pen and ink, metalpoint and coloured chalk. Some are finished works, while others are preparatory studies for altarpieces, decorative frescoes, portraits, sculpture and architecture.

Other members of the royal family have shared a love of Italian Renaissance art. With the Consul Smith collection, acquired en masse by George III in 1762, came Giovanni Bellini’s Portrait of a Young Man. Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, particularly admired early Italian painting. He bought Girolamo Romanino’s elegant Portrait of a Man, which hung in his rooms at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

The drama of the Baroque comes to Edinburgh in part two of The Art of Italy, which focuses on the 17th century. Among the masterpieces on show is The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew, recently revealed as one of only 50 surviving works by Caravaggio. Other highlights include Annibale Carracci’s Allegory of Truth and Time, Orazio Gentileschi’s Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, Cristofano Allori’s Judith with the Head of Holofernes and drawings by Guido Reni, Guercino and Bernini.