It’s an instinct of curators to put the pieces back together, to reintroduce works of art which time and market forces have scattered to the four winds. In recent memory, exhibitions have reunited in one space all of Monet’s haystacks, Cézanne’s card players and, in the case of the National Gallery’s momentous Leonardo show, both versions of The Virgin on the Rocks. A new exhibition opened this week in Florence which takes the business of synthesis to the next level.

The images in this gallery illustrate some of the links and juxtapositions made in The Springtime of the Renaissance. Classical statues which influenced Florentine artists, works reunited for the first time in centuries, sculptural forms reproduced in two-dimensional paintings (see main image) - you can find all of them below. The 20 images are arranged in 10 pairs, each of which represents a theme of the exhibition.

Federico Barocci, who he? According to the National Gallery, a great Renaissance, mannerist and Baroque painter hardly known outside Italy, the National’s own Madonna of the Cat his only easel painting in a public collection in the UK. So while the Catholic church may be in turmoil, in central London there is a collection of images of colourful serenity, inspired by the Counter-Reformation of four centuries ago, and now appropriately resurrected for a contemporary audience.

I’ve always loved this painting in the National Gallery by Sandro Botticelli. The jewel-like colours and exquisite clarity of detail create a consoling sense of lucidity, as though everything has been revealed to be alright.

In what ways was the Northern Renaissance distinct from the Italian one? When we look at a painting by Holbein we’re struck by the painting’s rich surface: we admire the finely delineated weave of a Turkish rug, the individual hairs of fur lining a heavy coat, the intricate calligraphy of musical notation in an open hymn book. Since all is sumptuous surface and detail, our eyes feast upon the mass, weight and texture of objects firmly rooting us to the material world.

Alonso Berruguete, Vicente Carducho, Juan Antonio Conchillos y Falco and Pedro Machuca are hardly familiar names in the Anglophone art world, but their drawings are on view in a revelatory exhibition. The British Museum is showing nearly all its Spanish drawings and a fine, succinct collection of prints, in an anthology called From the Renaissance to Goya. 

Three paintings by Titian depicting stories from Ovid’s poem Metamorphoses welcome you to the National Gallery’s exhibition Metamorphosis: Titian 2012. Diana and Callisto shows Diana casting out the pregnant nymph Callisto from her company. Diana and Actaeon depicts the young Actaeon out hunting and stumbling into a sacred grotto where Diana and her nymphs are bathing; and in The Death of Actaeon, we see the goddess exacting vengeance on the intruder by turning him into a stag to be torn to pieces by his own hounds.

Such a pity about Beatrice and Benedict! As a musical visualiser, a creator of musical tableaux, a radio composer avant la lettre, Berlioz had few equals. The Damnation of Faust is surely the greatest radio opera ever written. But for some reason he had no grasp of the stage. Benvenuto Cellini is a lifeless succession of spectacular tableaux. The Trojans must have more superb music per square yard of ineffective drama than any work of comparable length.

Last year, like every year, is a bit of a blur. I saw a lot, but all the good stuff seems to have clustered near the end. Maybe an end-of-year cultural bloat has finally settled. Anyway, to help jog the memory, I think I should start bottom-up. 

In the 1450s in Florence, Alberti was working on the facade of Santa Maria Novella, Donatello and Fra Filippo Lippi were active, while Leonardo was born in nearby village of Vinci. And the English established a diplomatic presence. It has continued almost uninterrupted, pausing only in times of direct conflict. This month, it ends as the British consulate closes its doors for the last time. Cuts to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget and global geopolitical shifts mean that the United Kingdom no longer needs a man in Florence to tend to the needs of tourists and expats.