Since its creation in 1504, Michelangelo's David has been a symbol of Italian culture. Curators are now voicing concerns about the commercialization of the statue.
Michelangelo’s David has been a towering figure in Italian culture since its completion in 1504. But in the current era of the quick buck, curators worry the marble statue’s religious and political significance is being diminished by the thousands of refrigerator magnets and other souvenirs sold around Florence focusing on David’s genitalia.
At Hollberg’s behest, the state’s attorney office in Florence has launched a series of court cases invoking Italy’s landmark cultural heritage code, which protects artistic treasures from disparaging and unauthorized commercial use. The Accademia has won hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages since 2017, Hollberg said.
More broadly, the decisions raise the question of whether institutions should be the arbiters of taste, and to what extent freedom of expression is being limited. 'It raises not just legal issues, but also philosophical issues. What does cultural patrimony mean? How much of a stranglehold do you want to give institutions over ideas and images that are in the public domain?’’ said Thomas C. Danziger, an art market lawyer based in New York.
The jurisprudence is still being tested. A court in Venice ordered Germany’s Ravensburger jigsaw puzzle maker to stop using the image of 'Vitruvian Man' in the first case to involve a company outside Italy. The ruling implicitly rejected Ravensburger’s argument that the law was incompatible with the EU directive on copyright, lawyers said.
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