Italy

Venetian edition of Commedia, lunar map and account of Polar voyages surface in Milan.

You can always find stylish pieces at 20th century design sales held by Italian auction houses. Here are some highlights from recent sales at Wannenes in Genoa on December 15-16 and Colasanti in Rome on October 7-8.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Part of a medieval manuscript stolen in Italy more than 30 years ago has been returned with the help of London firm Bloomsbury Auctions.

Estimated at €50,000 but sold for €405,000 (£346,275) in a sale held in Turin by was a 1482 edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia.

Very soon after the gun was invented men were trying to find ways of speeding up the process of reloading powder and shot to obtain a superior rate of fire.

The export of Italian art has become easier following changes made to the country’s cultural laws.

This 19th century Carrara marble group by the Florentine sculptor Odoardo Fantacchiotti featured in Genoa on March 16.

Such was the demand for suits of armour from late 19th and early 20th century collectors that European master armourers were kept hard at work long after the practical need for such protective wear had passed.

Throughout his long career, Giorgio de Chirico often returned to the subject ‘Piazza d’Italia’, one of the most familiar images among his metaphysical paintings.

Turin dealership Caretto & Occhinegro Gallery has sold a previously unpublished oil by Jan Matsys (c.1510-75) to the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

Firearms curiosa have long been a fascinating avenue for the collector to explore and this intriguing combined flintlock and lamp of c.1800 made €8500 (£7800) at Czerny (20% buyer’s premium) on September 19.

Armour made a strong showing at the sale held in Sarzana by Italian arms specialist Czerny (20% buyer’s premium) on September 19.

The sale of the Müller-Frei collection of paintings and decorative arts held by Koller (25% buyer’s premium) in Zurich last month included two early 18th century Meissen figure groups that outstripped their estimates.

Military uniforms reached their ornamental peak in the 19th century Western Europe – with the leaders of the day sharing in their ostentation

This stellar 17th century Baroque ivory plaque depicting the Pieta attended by angels and putti carries the name 'IC Storer' for the German artist Johann Christoph Storer (1621-71).

This sheet of studies of a monkey in red chalk on paper by the St Petersburg-born artist Alexander Jacovleff (1887-1938) will be offered in Il Ponte’s sale of 19th century paintings and sculpture in Milan on November 21.