Italian PM 'enhances' ancient Roman statues

[Melvadius]

Following on from innumerable gaffs, sexual misconduct allegations and general political and other 'foot-in-mouth' comments and actions Italy's current prime minister (Berlusconi) has apparently found a new way to get his name in the papers.

 

Is this something we should get upset about?

 

Italy's prime minister is under attack for authorising what amounts to plastic surgery on two Roman marble statues.

 

The statues, which depict the naked gods Venus and Mars, are on show in Silvio Berlusconi's Rome residence.

 

Mr Berlusconi ordered a replacement for the missing penis on the statue of the ancient god of war, and a missing hand for Venus.

 

Art experts say it is tasteless and aesthetically wrong to replace the missing body parts.

 

The additions to the two ancient statues, dug up near Rome nearly 100 years ago and now adorning the courtyard of the prime minister's official residence, were ordered personally by Mr Berlusconi.

 

The statues were formerly kept in a Rome museum

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[Ursus]

Judging from the photos, the restored parts seemed tasteful enough. Not abig deal, in my book.

[Melvadius]

Judging from the photos, the restored parts seemed tasteful enough. Not abig deal, in my book.

 

Possibly although I have a couple of issues about this. The first is that although coming from a museum the 'restorations' do not seem to have been done to full museum standard ie the internationally agreed standard is that any replacement should be fully identifiable as such and equally important the 'restoration' must be fully reversible with no damage to the 'origial'.

 

This leads to a second question rather than issue - did he apply to the Vatican Museum to see if any of their sorted and labelled parts (most of which were removed by Victorian period ladies armed with geologists hammers) originally came from these statues so could be used in the restoration?