What's on in London
Hand-coloured woodcut print of the Battle of Zonchio, Italy, about 1499

British Museum · Bloomsbury

Multiplied wonders: Italian Renaissance woodcuts

Now showing8 October 2026 – 21 March 2027·Free

The first display devoted to Italian Renaissance woodcuts, from early devotional prints to chiaroscuro designs by Titian and Parmigianino, in Rooms 90 and 90a.

Exhibition website

In the smaller room there's a devil from a Bolognese tarot deck of the 1500s. Its back, from another deck, gives you a man seen from behind and the line "whoever loses scratches his backside".

Cards like that were made to be used up, which is why so few survive. The museum calls this the first display ever devoted to Italian Renaissance woodcuts, all from its own collection and many never shown before. The main room goes region by region, Venice, Rome, Tuscany and Emilia, from hand-coloured devotional sheets to designs by Titian and the two-tone chiaroscuro prints Parmigianino made in Bologna. The smaller room covers everyday uses: paper fans, card backs, wallpaper and big allegories of Fortune meant for walls.

It's a print-room show, with small sheets and long labels about cutters, blocks and printing privileges. No reviews have appeared yet. Entry is free, in Rooms 90 and 90a, and the full label text is online as a large-print guide.

Look for

  • The Battle of Zonchio

    The only known impression of this 1499 sea battle Venice lost to the Ottomans, stencil-coloured in red, green and yellow, with the Ottoman admiral labelled 'CHMALI' at the centre.

  • Dürer's block beside its print

    Adam and Eve with the Serpent hangs next to the actual 1510 woodblock it was printed from, so you can compare the cut wood with its mirror image on paper.

  • De' Barbari's Bird's Eye View of Venice

    Six joined sheets from 1500 show the city from above, with the Rialto Bridge still made of wood.

  • Titian's Saint Jerome

    A twisting saint in grey-brown and black that Ugo da Carpi may have used as evidence when he claimed to have invented chiaroscuro woodcut, actually a German invention.

  • Mice and dogs besieging the cats' castle

    Cats defend their stronghold against mice who have teamed up with dogs, in the earliest known Italian print of the subject.

Good for

  • Cheap Culture
  • Locals Who've Seen It All
  • Nerding Out

Skip if

You want paintings: everything here is a print on paper or a woodblock.

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