If you’ve been to Florence, there’s a good chance you’ve wandered the hallowed halls of the Accademia Gallery in search of the city’s most famous inhabitant: Michelangelo’s David.
Along with thousands of other visitors, you may have picked up a magnet to commemorate the encounter with this nude sculptural icon, completed in 1504.
But this time-honoured, cheeky souvenir may be at risk of disappearing – curators are taking aim at the less-than-reverent magnets and souvenirs sold around Florence focusing on David’s genitalia, raising questions about freedom of expression.
This is not the first time that David's more intimate details have caused consternation, with parents in Florida last year claiming the statue was too pornographic for children to study.
Protecting David's dignity
The Accademia’s director, Cecilie Hollberg, has been at the forefront of the battle for David’s dignity since her arrival at the museum in 2015. She finds the more explicit magnets, aprons, t-shirts and figurines sold by street sellers to be “debasing”.
Such is her distaste that the state’s attorney office in Florence, on Hollberg’s request, has launched a string of court cases invoking Italy’s landmark cultural heritage code, which protects artistic treasures against disparaging and unauthorised commercial use. According to Hollberg, the Accademia has won hundreds of thousands of euros in damages since 2017.
And it’s not just souvenir vendors that have been subject to Hollberg’s ire: she also has targeted GQ Italia for imposing a model’s face on David’s body, and luxury French fashion brand Longchamp’s racy Florence edition of its beloved “Le Pliage” bag featuring David’s more personal details.
The Accademia’s victories go against a widely held practice that intellectual property rights are protected only for a certain period before entering the public domain. According to the Berne Convention, signed by more than 180 countries (including Italy), this period is the artist’s lifetime plus 70 years.
“There was great joy throughout all the world for this truly unique victory that we managed to achieve, and questions and queries from all over about how we did it,” Hollberg told The Associated Press.
What are the implications of Hollberg's victories?
Success in the courts for the Accademia has had a snowball effect: legal action has followed to protect masterpieces at other museums, including Leonardo’s “Vitruvian Man,” Donatello’s David and Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.”
The decisions raise important questions: should institutions like the Accademia be the arbiters of taste, and do such decisions limit freedom of expression?
“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.
“Are you going to prevent artists like Warhol from creating what is a derivative work?’’ Danziger asked, referring to Andy Warhol’s renowned series inspired by Leonardo’s “Last Supper.” “Many people would view this as a land grab by the Italian courts to control and monetise artworks in the public domain that were never intended to be charged for,” he reflected.
Italy’s cultural code is hotly debated because it’s unusually broad in scope, and similar to that of the Vatican – essentially extending in perpetuity the author’s copyright to the museum or institution that owns it.
The EU Commission is in the process of checking whether the code, in fact, violates a 2019 European Union directive that any artwork no longer protected by copyright falls into the public domain, underlining that “everybody should be free to make, use and share copies of that work.”
Crucial work, or counterproductive?
Despite financial successes off the back of Hollberg’s fight, experts warn that such an aggressive stance could backfire for Italy – perhaps even costing the country valuable revenue. They say the hostile attitude could discourage the licensing of the country’s many iconic artworks, a significant source of capital, while also limiting the reproduction of masterpieces that serve as ambassadors for Italy on the international stage.
For now, and in spite of Hollberg’s best legal efforts, David’s genitals continue to abound in Florence’s souvenir shops.
“I am sorry that there is so much ignorance and so little respect in the use of a work that for centuries has been praised for its beauty, for its purity, for its meanings, its symbols, to make products in bad taste, out of plastic,” Hollberg said.
