From Da Vinci to Picasso, doodles and scribbles on display in Rome

A view shows sketches and scribblings on the back side of two 1454-1460 panels by Italian Venitian school painter Giovanni Bellini, at the exhibition "Scribbling And Doodling: From Leonardo da Vinci To Cy Twombly" at the Villa Medici, The French Academy in Rome. Photo: AFP

Hidden on the backs of canvases or scrawled on scraps of paper, doodles have allowed artists down the ages, from Michelangelo to Picasso, to test, explore and unleash their creativity.

Rome's Villa Medici is showcasing this long-ignored facet of artistic production in a new exhibition spanning the period from the Renaissance to the present day.