Procida, a tiny island off Naples, has been crowned Italian Capital of Culture 2022, Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism announced on 18 January.

There is a ray of light for Parisians who, like the rest of the French nation this weekend, begin to observe a tightened coronavirus curfew: The famous Rodin Museum sculpture gardens is reopening to visitors.

Italy's La Scala will play host to an opera on 23 January for the first time since before the Covid-19 lockdown, the iconic Milanese theatre announced.

Venice hailed a UN decision from mid-December to put the art of glass beads on its Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage and expressed hope it would help artisans hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Ivan Kostov creates sculptures for architectural environments and architectural design. He studied ceramics at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, from which he graduated in 1986. His works are module structures that he describes as meant to cause at a subconscious level “an exhilarating feeling of joy and satisfaction of what is happening in them”.

Pompeii's famed mosaic of Alexander the Great's victory over Persian king Darius at the Battle of Issus is set to be restored in a project starting at the end of the month and lasting until July, ANSA reported. The work depicting the 333 BC triumph, stored in Naples' Archeological Museum (MANN), is one of the most celebrated works that have come from the ancient Roman city buried by an eruption from Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

The Grammy Awards are being postponed until 14 March due to coronavirus-related concerns, the organisers said on Tuesday. “After thoughtful conversations with health experts, our host and artists scheduled to appear, we are rescheduling the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards to be broadcast Sunday, March 14, 2021,” a statement reads.

Little Bird Place Gallery in Sofia presents a group exhibition of 20 contemporary Bulgarian artists, limited to creating in 20x20 cm format, but without external interference in their internal state. The format is special and challenging, symmetrical and open to interpretation. Set not only to commemorate this unprecedented year, but also born of the need to accept our limitations in order to find new ways to break and overcome them.

Our generation is the bridge between the eras of communism and democracy. What we do not know is whether the foundations of that bridge will turn out solid enough for our children to cross it, or they will have to reinforce the structure to prevent it from collapsing so that at least their children can confidently and safely walk across it one day, say directors Petar Valchanov and Kristina Grozeva in an interview to Europost.

French couturier Pierre Cardin, who made his name by selling designer clothes to the masses, and his fortune by being the first to exploit that name as a brand for selling everything from cars to perfume, died on Tuesday aged 98.