(by Nicoletta Castagni)
ROME - Christo's spectacular installation 'The Floating Piers' on Lake Iseo in northern Italy attracted the greatest number of visitors in 2016 according to an ANSA ranking of the top ten exhibitions in Italy this year. The bright orange floating pathways by the American-Bulgarian artist drew a record 1.5 million visitors between June 18 and July 3.
The 15th International Architecture Exhibition, titled 'Reporting from the front' and curated by Alejandro Aravena, came second with 259,725 visitors, up 14% over the previous edition.
Third place went to the exhibition of work by Jan Fabre, which was admired by 254,000 people at Florence's Palazzo Vecchio between April 15 and October 2. This represents an extraordinary success, crowned by the additional 180,000 visitors who admired other works by the contemporary Flemish master on display in the Belvedere fortification and Piazza della Signoria in the Tuscan regional capital.
Fourth and fifth places went respectively to the exhibition 'From the Impressionists to Picasso' at the Doge's Palace in Genoa, where over 250,000 visitors admired masterpieces from the Detroit Institute of Arts, and 'Torments and enchantments' by the troubled Swiss painter Antonio Ligabue, on display in the Royal Palace (Palazzo dei Normanni) of Palermo (210,000 visitors).
Sixth place went to 'The Nile in Pompeii' at the Egyptian Museum in Turin (186,819 visitors), followed by the itinerant exhibition 'Escher', on display at the Museum of St Catherine in Treviso (169,233 visitors), 'Egypt, millennial splendor' at the Archaeological Museum of Bologna (163,976 visitors), 'Matisse and his time' at Palazzo Chiablese in Turin (163,574 visitors) and finally 'David Bowie Is' dedicated to the British music legend who died early this year, which came to Bologna's Mambo from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (130,511 visitors).
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