CANBERRA.- The National Gallery of Australia today announced that it will present the first ever exhibition in Australia dedicated to Renaissance paintings. The exhibition is titled Renaissance – 15th & 16th Century Italian Paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, it will be the Gallery’s major summer exhibition, opening on 9 December 2011. Everyone understands that the Renaissance was a golden age in which learning and the arts flourished as never before. The exhibition will feature more than 70 paintings including works by Italian masters such as Raphael, Botticelli, Bellini and Mantegna – artists whose paintings have never been seen in Australia before. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of Italian art are the foundation of the grand tradition of European painting. The genius of artists such as Raphael, Botticelli and Titian is known to most Australians, but visitors to this exhibition w