OXFORD.- On 16 September 2010 the Ashmolean launches its first major art exhibition in one of the country’s newest and most important temporary exhibition centres. THE PRE-RAPHAELITES AND ITALY brings together over 140 pictures from the Ashmolean’s important Pre-Raphaelite collection with loans from museums and private collections around the UK and abroad, some of which will be displayed in Britain for the first time. Held in partnership with the Ravenna Museum of Art, where the exhibition opened to critical acclaim, THE PRE-RAPHAELITES AND ITALY challenges what we know about the influence of Italy – its culture, landscape, and history – on one of Britain’s most significant and enduringly popular art movements. In re-examining their early years, curators Colin Harrison and Christopher Newall aim to shed new light on the artists who emerged as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the 1850s. From the influence of the move