Italian art experts have reportedly discovered around 100 drawings and a number of paintings by the Renaissance master Caravaggio in a find that could be worth over $860 million.

Maurizio Bernardelli Curuz and Adriana Conconi Fedrigolli found the works among a collection held at Milan's Sforza Castle by pupils of painter Simone Peterzano with whom Caravaggio studied from the age of 11.

Europe's tallest skyscraper the Shard was inaugurated in London on Thursday in a dazzling sound and light show befitting its status as the capital's brashest and most controversial building.

Thousands of Londoners gathered at vantage points around the city and lined the River Thames to take in the show, but the structure has been the source of heated debate during its gradual rise above capital's skyline.

The donation of a major collection of Chinese art has breathed new life into plans for a cultural development on Hong Kong's waterfront that more than once appeared to be on the brink of collapse.

Leaders of the almost $3 billion integrated development known as the West Kowloon Cultural District are now more confident than ever that the project, already 14 years in the planning, will become a reality from 2017.

U.N. cultural body UNESCO has warned Seville not to endanger its World Heritage status by building skyscrapers in its historic center after a controversial tower nearly stripped the Spanish city of its title.

Seville managed to irritate UNESCO by constructing a 178-metre (584-feet) high tower, designed by architect Cesar Pelli, just a few hundred metres (yards) from the city's Giralda, a former minaret converted to a bell tower for the cathedral -- home to the tomb of Christopher Columbus -- and its Alcazar palace.

Even death does not provide relief from soaring property prices in Hong Kong, where those seeking a final resting place for a loved one face high costs and a shortage of space.

The squeeze has become so acute that traditional Chinese thinking -- where not having a proper burial or a fixed site at which to remember the dead denies the soul a peaceful resting place -- is eroding in favor of sea funerals.

Lebanese famed choreographer Abdul Halim Caracalla designed the historical musical “The Hero” that was staged at the seaside resort of Sidi Fredj in Algeria Wednesday, as part of the official festivities marking the 50th anniversary of the country’s Independence Day.

The musical brought together 800 actors, singers and ballet dancers and was transmitted live on public television. President Abdulaziz Bouteflika who attended the musical went up onto the stage to congratulate the artistes.

The Vienna State Opera scored a new profit record this season, raking in over 31.3 million euros, with average attendance at over 98 percent, the venerable house announced Tuesday.

A total 588,990 visitors attended over 360 opera, ballet and children's opera performances from September to June, the Vienna Opera said in statement.

Cuts in Italy's culture budget and regional spending have forced two music festivals in the ancient town of Viterbo to merge this summer so that one of them can be saved, organizers said Tuesday.

To enable the famous Viterbo Baroque Festival -- held for the past 41 years -- to go ahead, it will be combined with the Tuscia Operafestival, according to Tuscia's artistic director Stefano Vignati.

"The Lock" by British Romantic painter John Constable on Tuesday sold for £22.4 million ($35.2 million) at a London sale, smashing the world record price at auction for the artist.

The 56 x 47 inch (142.2 x 120.7 cm) oil on canvas, which depicts rural life in Suffolk, east England, went under the hammer at Christie's Old Master and British Paintings Evening Sale.

Seventy-five years after Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific, a research team plans to leave Tuesday on an expedition to solve the mystery over the pioneering aviatrix's fate.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) is heading to Nikumaroro Island in Kiribati to try to establish whether Earhart survived the apparent crash of her aircraft three quarters of a century ago.