Better known by the Chinese name he took after arriving in Beijing, Lang Shining, Castiglione is recognized as a cultural envoy between China and Italy.

Now, not far from the Palace Museum where Castiglione's art is housed, a dozen artists from Castiglione's home country have assumed the role as envoys bridging the two cultures by showing their works to the Chinese public.

The National Art Museum of China exhibition, Thoughts in the Heart, running until Sunday, gathers several paintings, sculptures and installations of 13 academic artists at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, of which the establishment in 1563 was proposed by Renaissance painter and writer Giorgio Vasari and the artloving Benedictine priest Don Vincenzio Borghini.

The first academic of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno was Michelangelo, the artist whose best-known works include the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, according to Cristina Acidini, president of the institution.