l The French Academy is celebrating the completion of a restoration project with an exhibition by German artist Anselm Kiefer. Work on the 16th-century villa, including the refurbishment of the bar and cinema room, has been overseen by academy director Richard Peduzzi, an artist and acclaimed former set designer, who has been in charge of the academy since 2002 and says he wants to attract as broad a spectrum of visitors as possible.

Kiefer, a former pupil of German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, was born in 1945 and has become internationally renowned for his imposing artworks dealing with the historical, mythological and literary themes of post-war Germany. In Die Frauen he traces history through some of the great female icons of the past; his sketches, paintings, installations and sculptures, most of them created at Villa Medici and previously unseen, recreate the voices of women ranging from divinities of ancient Greece to French queens and vestal virgins, from Madame de Stal to Berenice, and from Saffo to Daphne. The exhibition is being staged in the villas reopened galleries and in the Atelier del Bosco in its gardens; it runs until 8 March and is open 11.00-19.00, Tues closed.

French Academy at Villa Medici, Viale Trinit dei Monti 1, tel. 0667611,

www.villamedici.it.

l The Polish Institute of Rome is exhibiting the work of two young photographers who both returned to the places in which they grew up to search for their identities. Hometown sees Krzysztof Zielinski back in the small and rather ugly town of Wabrzezno, where he finds himself becoming assimilated all over again through the act of taking photographs. In Dallaltra parte del balcone, Julia Saniszewska presents portraits of her old neighbours, the inhabitants of a gloomy apartment block in the Mokotow district of Warsaw, pictures which display a similar fascination with the environment that helped form her. The exhibition runs until 4 March and is open Mon-Fri 10.00-18.00.

Polish Institute of Rome, Via Vittoria Colonna 1, tel. 0636000723,

www.istitutopolacco.it.

l The Goethe Institut is staging a series of events entitled Culture Migranti to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of a labour agreement between Italy and Germany, which saw millions of Italians leave their homes to live and work in Germany. Napoli-Bochum-Rimini: Lavoro in Germania, vacanze in Italia is an exhibition documenting the migration that took place in both directions during the post-war period of economic boom: of Italians heading north in search of jobs in agriculture and industry, and of Germans heading south on their holidays in search of sea and sunshine. Both nationalities were confronted with prejudice and stereotypes, and the reality on arrival often failed to live up to the dream. Napoli-Bochum-Rimini runs until 18 Feb and is open Tues-Fri 14.00-20.00, Sat 10.00-12.00.

The Culture Migranti initiative also includes a conference entitled Da paese demigrazione a paese dimmigrazione, to be held 17 and 18 Feb, which will examine migratory flows between Italy and Germany in the context of immigration in Europe today.

Goethe Institut, Via Savoia 15, tel. 068440051, www.goethe.de/it/rom.

l The work of young French photographer Olivia Gay can be seen for the first time in Italy in an exhibition at LOL - spazio in metamorfosi, staged in collaboration with the Saint-Louis de France Cultural Centre. The work on show documents the lives of prostitutes in different parts of the world, with each image an attempt to offer insight into stories never told. Guardare non toccare is at Piazza degli Zingari 11 until 20 Feb, and is open Mon-Sat 10.00-20.00, Sun 11.00-13.00 and 17.00-20.00.

Saint-Louis de France Cultural Centre, Largo Toniolo 20/22, tel. 066802626, www.saintlouisdefrance.it.

l The American Academy is one of four venues hosting an exhibition which celebrates the centenary of the founding of the Keats-Shelley Memorial House as a museum in the first decade of the 20th century. Spellbound by Rome: the Anglo-American community in Rome 1890-1914, and the founding of the Keats-Shelley House focuses on the British and American artists and writers who lived in the Eternal City in the years before world war one, and the debt they owed to the English Romantic poets. Paintings, sculpture, drawings and illustrated books will be on show at all four locations 16 Feb-16 April, at the following times: American Academy in Rome, Tues-Sat 16.00-19.00; Keats-Shelley House (Piazza di Spagna 26), Mon-Fri 09.00-13.00 and 15.00-18.00, Sat 11.00-14.00 and 15.00-18.00; St Pauls within-the-Walls (Via Napoli 58), Mon-Fri 09.00-16.00; and the Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen (Via P. Stanislao Mancini 20), Tues-Sun 09.00-19.00.

The American Academy is also to host a symposium which will examine whether the 13th-century priest Thomas Aquinas and the artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) would understand the principles of contemporary digital imaging better than, for example, 20th-century architect Mies van der Rohe, thanks to their familiarity with variable media. The argument is based on the concept that the new digital environment is closer to pre-print script culture than it is to the age of print. Being digital in the early renaissance will be held 17 Feb at 18.00.

American Academy in Rome, Via A. Masina 5, tel. 0658461, www.aarome.org.

l Visitors to the Casa di Goethe can get a glimpse of Roman scenery as it appeared at the end of the 18th century to three German artists, who between them produced some 72 etchings during the period 1792-1798. Johann Christian Reinhart, Jacob Wilhelm Mechau and Christoph Albert Dies bucked the trend by focusing their efforts on the countryside surrounding Rome rather than on views of the city itself, creating a series considered one of the best examples of graphic art of the era. Incisioni pittoriche di vedute italiane runs until 6 March and is open 10.00-18.00, Mon closed.

Casa di Goethe, Via del Corso 18, tel. 0632650412, www.casadigoethe.it.