CONTROVERSIAL Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has touched up a copy of an Italian masterpiece painting because too much breast was exposed, it emerged yesterday.
The cover-up was ordered after media tycoon Mr Berlusconi, 71, became concerned that television cameras would focus on the chest of the naked female in the painting, which is on display behind him during media briefings at Palazzo Chigi, his official
residence.
Insiders also said that the feelings of female members of his Cabinet – who include former topless model-turned equal opportunities minister Mara Carfagna – were also considered.
Venetian painter and fresco artiste Giambattisto Tiepolo's 254-year-old masterpiece, Time Unveiling Truth, was chosen as the backdrop of the prime minister's media briefing room shortly after Mr Berlusconi swept back to power in April.
Photographs and television footage have now revealed that, up until a few days ago, the naked, firm and well-rounded breast of Truth, which was exposed, had been covered by a white veil.
The "veil" was added in by hand over the breasts of Truth. But the move has infuriated art lovers. Yesterday, the critic and former deputy culture minister Vittorio Sgarbi told Italian daily newspaper Corriere Della Sera: "What have they done? It's madness, absolute madness.
"So what are they going to do with all the statues of naked women scattered in museums throughout Italy with busts that would take Pamela Anderson's breath away?
"I hope that whoever came up with this absurd, mad, pathetic, comic and futile idea was acting without the knowledge of the prime minister. Maybe they wanted to do him a favour by not letting Italians associate a breast with his image, but if anything, it has done the opposite.
"You cannot touch up a Tiepolo."
Last night Giancarlo Galan, the governor of the Veneto region, which includes Venice, also criticised the cover-up of the painting.
He said: "It is not good to offend Tiepolo. The author of this grotesque and absurd gesture should be punished as they have offended a particular artist.
"The prime minister's office has managed to offend one of the great artists of liberty."
Yesterday, Paolo Bonaiuti, a spokesman for the prime minister, said: "The decision was taken to cover up the exposed breast for fear of offending the sensibilities of people watching press conferences."
Another Italian paper, La Stampa, compared the cover-up to the 16th-century censorship imposed by the Vatican of Michelangelo's naked figures in the frescoes adorning the Sistine Chapel, which ordained that "indecorous nudes" must be similarly draped in gauze.
The paper suggested: "Perhaps the prime minister's staff feared that the attention of journalists was being drawn to the breast over his left shoulder rather than to what he was saying."
Loaded with symbolism, Time Unveiling Truth has obvious intended associations for a room full of journalists.
It portrays Time as an old, bearded man armed with a scythe, seen in the act of crushing a serpent under his foot.
Time is unveiling Truth, the naked woman who holds the globe of the sun in her left hand. The two main figures, softly resting on a great brownish cloud against a luminous sky, are crowned by the usual host of cherub-like figures.
The painting was commissioned by a lawyer, Carlo Cordellina, for his home in Vicenza near Venice. The original hangs in the nearby civic museum.
The full article contains 575 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
