Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Titian will be among 45 Italian Renaissance drawings going on display in Scotland for the first time this October, as part of an exhibition featuring more than 80 drawings by 57 artists – the most wide-ranging show of its kind in Scotland in over half a century. 

Following a successful run in London, Drawing the Italian Renaissance will open at The King’s Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on 17 October 2025. The exhibition will explore how drawing was key to artistic practice in all fields during the Italian Renaissance and will reveal how dynamic the art of drawing became during this revolutionary artistic period.

Lauren Porter, curator of Drawing the Italian Renaissance in Edinburgh, said: ‘The Royal Collection holds one of the finest collections of Italian Renaissance drawings, many of which were acquired during the reign of Charles II. The drawings cannot be on permanent display because of their sensitivity to light, so this exhibition offers a rare and exciting opportunity for visitors to see a wide variety of works from this great collection, many of which are on display in Scotland for the first time.

‘Drawings were fundamental to the art of the Renaissance, allowing artists to conceive and explore ideas, refine their designs and to experiment. Being able to view these drawings so closely will give visitors a unique insight into the minds of these great Italian Renaissance artists.’ 

The exhibition will highlight the continued relevance of drawing today as an essential part of many artists’ practice. Two Artists in Residence, both alumni of Edinburgh College of Art and appointed in collaboration with the School, will be drawing in the Gallery on selected days throughout the exhibition’s run. Visitors to the exhibition will also be encouraged to take inspiration from the works on display and try their hand at drawing with pencils and paper available in the Gallery. 

Most drawings from the Italian Renaissance were created as preparation for projects in a variety of media, from paintings and prints to architecture, sculpture, metalwork, tapestry and costume. They were often discarded after they had served their purpose, and only a small proportion have survived to the present day. As the drawings in the Royal Collection have been carefully preserved for hundreds of years, they can be enjoyed almost as vividly as when they were created. The oldest drawing in the exhibition, in which an unknown artist depicts a young man sitting and drawing with a sleeping dog by his side, is around 550 years old and will be exhibited in Scotland for the first time. 

Also on display for the first time in Scotland will be an elaborately worked drawing in red and black chalk on red prepared paper of the curly-haired head of a young man by Leonardo da Vinci, and Federico Barocci’s drawing of The head of the Virgin in delicately blended colourful chalks. The idealised features of these two head studies contrast with the distorted and tormented facial expression of the grotesque head drawn by Michelangelo which will be displayed nearby. 

Many drawings in the exhibition are religious in their subject matter, including Raphael’s Christ’s Charge to Peter, which is one of his designs for a tapestry to be hung in the Sistine Chapel, and Michelangelo’s The Virgin and Child with the young Baptist, which may have been created as a preparatory study for a sculpture or perhaps as a private act of devotion. 

On display for the first time in Scotland, following extensive conservation work before the London exhibition, will be a cartoon for an altarpiece of the Virgin and Child by the late-Renaissance artist Bernardino Campi. Cartoons, which were large sheets of paper used to transfer a final design onto a painting’s surface, were often executed on poor-quality paper and were never intended to be kept – let alone displayed. It took almost 120 hours of conservation work by Royal Collection Trust conservators to prepare the work to be exhibited, which involved painstakingly removing the drawing from its deteriorating canvas backing and supporting sections where the paper had become as delicate as lace. 

The exhibition includes many preparatory drawings for the applied arts. These drawings would be used by specialist craftsmen to translate the artist’s design into another medium. Included in the exhibition is a colourful design for a painted wooden ceiling incorporating the scene of David slaying Goliath by an unidentified Roman artist, and an extravagant and asymmetrical 1.36-metre-high design for a candelabrum which features a riot of different motifs – presumably acting almost as a menu, from which a patron could select the elements he liked the most.

A section of the exhibition will examine how Italian Renaissance artists observed and explored the natural world, from a study of a branch of a blackberry bush by Leonardo da Vinci, capturing the vigorous nature of the bramble’s growth, to a drawing attributed to the Venetian artist Titian of an ostrich, believed to have been drawn from life, perhaps when the animal arrived after being imported into the port city as an exotic curiosity. 

As well as works by the most famous names of the Italian Renaissance, the exhibition will give visitors an insight into the work of lesser-known artists who produced some of the finest drawings of the period. Many of these works have never been shown in Scotland before and include a striking charcoal portrait of the head of a youth, which has been attributed to Pietro Faccini, and the imposing pen and ink drawing of a seated St Jerome by Bartolomeo Passarotti.

Following a successful launch in 2024, The King’s Gallery will continue to offer £1 tickets to this exhibition for visitors receiving Universal Credit and other named benefits. Further concessionary rates are available, including discounted tickets for young people, half-price entry for children (with under-fives free), and the option to convert standard tickets bought directly from Royal Collection Trust into a 1-Year Pass for unlimited re-entry for 12 months.

Drawing the Italian Renaissance will be at The King’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, 17 October 2025 – 1 March 2026. 

A selection of images is available via Dropbox. Credit line: © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2025 | Royal Collection Trust. For further information, please contact the Royal Collection Trust Press Office, +44 (0)20 7839 1377, [email protected]. 

Visitor information and tickets for The King’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse: www.rct.uk, T. +44 (0)303 123 7306. For the duration of this exhibition, The King's Gallery is open Thursday to Monday, remaining closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Further details about the £1 ticket scheme can be found here. £1 tickets are available for those receiving Universal Credit and other named benefits and up to five additional members of the household for the full duration of Drawing the Italian Renaissance at The King’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse. 

The complementary publication Be Inspired: To Draw Like a Renaissance Master is a workbook combining drawing exercises and pages for sketching with an introductory essay by Martin Clayton, Head of Prints and Drawings at Royal Collection Trust, and is available at £16.95 from Royal Collection Trust shops, royalcollectionshop.co.uk, and all good bookshops.

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Notes to Editors

Royal Collection Trust is a charity caring for the Royal Collection and welcoming visitors to the royal palaces. We bring our shared history to life through world-class experiences that involve and inspire people, wherever they are. Income from tickets and retail sales helps us to conserve the Collection so that it can be enjoyed by everyone for generations to come.

The Royal Collection is one of the world’s great art collections, held in trust by The King for his successors and the nation. With over a million objects, from paintings, drawings and books to sculpture, furniture and jewellery, it is a unique record of the tastes of British kings and queens over the past 500 years, with many items still used today for their original purpose. The Collection can be seen in palaces, museums and galleries across the UK and around the world, and can be explored online at www.rct.uk. 

Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is a leading international art school within the University of Edinburgh, based in one of the world’s great cultural capitals. ECA brings together creative disciplines that shape the world, offering degrees in Art, Design, History of Art, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and Music.

Known for innovative teaching, research and public engagement, ECA provides an inclusive and sustainable environment with outstanding facilities that support creative and academic ambition. Through interdisciplinary collaboration and a strong commitment to cultural engagement, ECA contributes to new ways of thinking, making and understanding in a global context.

www.eca.ed.ac.uk.