Four years ago, the French billionaire and art collector François Pinault scandalized his countrymen when he abandoned plans for an art foundation outside Paris and instead acquired a controlling interest in Venice’s Palazzo Grassi. Subsequently, he gained a 30-year concession to the Punta della Dogana and its 17th-century customs house at the edge of the Grand Canal, where he will show exclusively from his collection — which includes many Italian works. For complete access to one of the most spectacular historic sites in Venice, Pinault beat out neither the nation’s government nor a Milanese tycoon but the New York-based Guggenheim Foundation.

Some Italians have regarded Pinault with particular skepticism, but he is not the only foreigner to express interest in the southern European country and its art in recent years. The trend was obvious last October in London. At the Christie’s 20th-century Italian-art sale, bidding for one of Piero Manzoni’s Achromes pushed the painting’s price above £1.6 million ($3.2 million), and several other artists beat their high estimates, including Jannis Kounellis and Lucio Fontana. Altogether, the sale pulled in more than £11 million ($22 million). The Sotheby’s sale the same night produced even better numbers, earning a total of more than £13.5 million ($27.5 million).

"Italian art used to be viewed as a bargain, but this auction has taken it to a much higher level," says Mariolina Bassetti, seated in the Christie’s offices at one end of Rome’s Piazza Navona. As international director of the modern- and contemporary-art department of Christie’s Italy, she is the cohead of the annual Italian sale in London and works on the twice-yearly sales of modern and contemporary art in Milan. She notes that the London event brought in £6 million ($12 million) in 2000, its debut year, but by 2007 the number had skyrocketed to £15 million ($30 million). "The big change is that foreigners have discovered and are supporting Italian art," she says. "They see enormous potential, both from a cultural and a market-oriented point of view."

Like any good businessman, Pinault recognized a good deal before the market did and has been acquiring Italian artworks for years. "All the immediate postwar and Arte Povera artists were already there," says Alison Gingeras, the curator of Pinault’s collection since 2006, "although he has built upon those holdings. He has lived with amazing Alberto Burri paintings in his house since — well, forever. He has an incredible early Michelangelo Pistoletto, a fantastic Pino Pascali piece. And he was already collecting younger artists like Maurizio Cattelan, Alessandro Pessoli and Francesco Vezzoli before he met me." Gingeras introduced Pinault to other emerging artists, such as Roberto Cuoghi, whose work has ranged from transforming himself into his deceased father to re-creating the fall of an ancient Mesopotamian city through sound.

Shortly after Pinault and his French-speaking staff descended on Venice, Larry Gagosian decided to open a gallery in Rome. Packed with Berninis and Caravaggios, the capital had drifted so far out to the fringes of the current art scene that the New York art dealer’s motive was hard to fathom. The most plausible theory is that he was making an early bid for the estate of Cy Twombly, a longtime resident and an artist Gagosian has shown in New York since 1994.

"It doesn’t come from Twombly being here," insists Pepi Marchetti Franchi, the gallery’s glamorous Roman-born director, who met Gagosian while working at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. "Twombly was one of the fiercest opponents of the idea, because he loves his privacy." She, too, tried to dissuade the dealer from an action she considered "the craziest thing I had ever heard," but was eventually convinced by his reasoning. "It’s about seeing Rome as a powerful magnet for artists, collectors and people who are interested in the arts," Marchetti Franchi explains, adding that its central location and low profile were also attractions. "Larry thought it would be appealing for several of the artists we work with who receive invitations to exhibit in London or New York all the time."