10134 Berlusconi Takes Fire For Nipple Cover-Up

Really .....

Reuters - Monday, August 4 03:57 pm

ROME (Reuters) - The government cover-up that Italians are whispering about these days has nothing to do with politics. Instead, it's about a missing nipple.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's staff have altered a reproduction of a famous 18th-century painting by Giambattista Tiepolo to cover an exposed breast on full display in the press room in the Palazzo Chigi, the prime minister's palace.

Nude artwork rarely offends in Italy, home to innumerable classical nudes in painting and sculpture. But this particular bare breast, in Tiepolo's "Time Uncovering Truth", was the backdrop for press conferences and often caught on camera.

Aides decided to repaint the woman's gown to cover the offending nipple.

"It was an initiative by those on the presidential staff who look after Berlusconi's image," his spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti, was quoted telling the daily Corriere della Sera.

"That breast, that nipple ... it ends up exactly inside the frame captured by TV news stations at press conferences."

Vittorio Sgarbi, an art critic and once a culture undersecretary in a previous Berlusconi government, called the move "crazy".

"What should be done with all the statues of women at dozens of Italian museums, where breasts can be admired that would even leave Pamela Anderson breathless?" Sgarbi told Corriere.

(Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Category
General chat about Italy

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 15:20

[quote=Sally Donaldson;94295]Really ...[/quote]

This was in today's Telegraph what's your view?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 15:23

More on this topic with a photograph of the painting:

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/04/italy.art]Truth, Lies and Berlusconi: Italy's playboy premier accused of nudity cover-up | World news | The Guardian[/url]

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 15:41

.... and in this article they show the painting, before and after.....

[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1041189/Berlusconi-touches-Italian-masterpiece-showed-breast.html]Berlusconi 'touches up' Italian masterpiece that showed too much breast | Mail Online[/url]

I can't believe what he has done!!! To alter a painting by Tiepolo!!!! What is he going to do next?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 16:00

It's vandalism. The painting should have been removed and something else hung in its place as a temporary measure if need be. After all it's not as if there is a shortage of masterpieces in Italy!!! Even just a curtain placed in front.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 16:08

Its been happening for many years..........who painted the famous hands in the Sistine Chaple ........I will give you a clue.........it was not Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni....:no::no::no:

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 16:55

Calm down. Read your own links carefully. :SLEEP:

[quote][B]A copy[/B] of the 254-year-old masterpiece Tiepolo was chosen as the backdrop of the PM's media briefing room in Rome shortly after Berlusconi swept back to power in April.[/quote]

[quote]Over the table at which Berlusconi holds press conferences in Palazzo Chigi, Italy's equivalent of No 10 Downing Street, hangs a huge [B]copy [/B]of a painting by the 18th-century Venetian master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. It was selected by Berlusconi himself.[/quote]

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 17:05

Yes, but someone had to paint the copy!!! So was it then that artist who then covered up the nipple I wonder"??? lol

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 17:14

Even if it is a copy, I don't think he has the right to alter the original concept. Seriously, it would have been better to change the painting. By the way, don´t miss all the "faux-pas" from Berlusconi listed in the same article. The guy is embarrassing.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 17:17

Sally - a "copy" in Italy means anything they want it to - other than original - including a facsimile. And knowing Italian men, Berlu probably peeled the paint away when no one else was looking. :bigergrin:

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 04:49

I only skimmed the articles, but I saw no mention of how this incident is very similar to something that that happened a few years back in the USA: the covering up of a partially nude female statute that was behind fundamentalist US Attorney General John Ashcroft during his press briefings. BBC story [URL="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1788845.stm"]here[/URL].

The other thing that struck me is that - according to the Mail (for what that's worth) - apparently the picture was [I]chosen[/I] by Berlo or his team as a backdrop. So it's not like the offensive (to some) painting is a mural in a room used for press conferences by every Italian PM since the Risorgimento. Why didn't they just hang up a copy of a nice, wholesome painting dating from the 1920's or 30's depicting a scene from Roman history, noble farm labourers or the advance of technology? :winki:

Al

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 08/06/2008 - 12:45

We were talking about this over breakfast. We live in a heavily listed house and can barely knock a nail in the wall without the Bell' Arte's permission yet they go and paint over a Tiepolo copy? Why didn't they just move it? Or move Berlusconi?