A total of 86 paintings, sculptures and tapestries of Italian Renaissance masters arrived in Beijing Sunday to make their debut in the country, signaling the start of the 2006 Italian Culture Year in China.

The masterpieces will be on display at an exhibition titled "Italian Renaissance Art" at the Millennium World Art Museum of the Millennium Monument in southwestern Beijing from Jan. 14 to April 23.

Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Titian are among the masters whose works are to light up Beijing's bleak winter with the brilliance of Renaissance art, reported Monday's China Daily.

A Portrait of a Young Lady by Peiro Pollaiuolo, valued at 500 million yuan(US$61.9 million), was the first artwork to be taken out of dozens of boxes that traveled 10,000 kilometers under strict security from museums in Florence, Italy.

"In Florence, the artworks are spread out in many museums, but in Beijing they are brought together for the grandest show ever held in China," said Wang Limei, director of the Millennium Museum.

The collection, which would make "even Florentines jealous," is on loan from 12 museums in Florence, Wang said.

The art on display was created over a span of six centuries, between the Proto-Renaissance -- the first rays of Renaissance in the late 13th century during the High Medieval Age -- and the Baroque to the mid-18th century, said the newspaper.

After the Renaissance art show, the Italian Culture Year in China will feature dozens of events, such as the exhibition of avant-garde art from Venice Biennale at the National Museum of China, and the performance of the La Scala opera house of Milan in Beijing and Shanghai, according to Li Shaoping, an official with the Chinese Ministry of Culture.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2006)