Italy PM replaces penis on statue, angers experts

[Akoto]

ROME (AP) -- Italy's culture ministry on Friday defended Premier Silvio Berlusconi for giving ancient marble statues in his office replacement body parts, to the horror of art restorers.

The ministry, which is led by a close ally of the premier, said in a statement there's no cause for alarm: The hand added to Venus and the penis added to Mars are attached by magnets and can be removed without damage.

For decades, restorers have widely agreed that missing parts of ancient statues should not be recreated.

Rome daily La Repubblica quoted Vatican Museums director Antonio Paolucci, one of Italy's top restoration experts, as saying "it's a pity" restorers didn't say no to Berlusconi's request to add parts to the 2nd century statues in Chigi Palace, the premier's office.

LINK: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_BERLUSCONIS_TOUCHUP?SITE=MIBAX&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Poll_Blind]

1. But without these little additions to contemplate, how else will Berlusconi pass the time?

:shrug:

PB

[meow2u3]

2. I hope he used his own

:evilgrin:

[Beetwasher]

3. Somewhere, John Ashcroft Is Fainting

n/t

[Sal Minella]

6. I hope there's some sort of heavy blue velvet modesty curtain

situated between the hand and the penis.

[CJCRANE]

4. Is this the Italian version of the Onion?

:shrug:

[fascisthunter]

5. these are supposed to be grown ups

what weird worlds they must grow up in to be this infantile about nudity.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. Pope Paul IV

the whole Dick Crusade, which is totally what it should have been called.
Dan Brown, for instance, claims the whole thing started in the 19th century when Pope Pius IX whacked off (figuratively speaking) a bunch of stone dicks so they would not corrupt the minds of the citizens. While we can't vouch for what Dan Brown calls "historical accuracy," nor can we vouch for what Pius was up to in his spare time, the whole dick thing started much, much, earlier.
In an effort to keep up with the Protestant Reformation's sense of piousness during the 1500s, the Catholic Church decided to ban any depiction of genitalia, breasts and buttocks (essentially, all the fun bits) in art. Pope Paul IV turned the church away from its more sinful, penis-filled past by adding marble and plaster fig leaves to groins of the statues within the Vatican, permanently damaging many statues.

You'd think a man dressed as the head of a penis would be a little more open.
Pope Innocent continued Paul's work in the 1600s, but for reasons unknown (we suspect it was his "thing"), he added metal fig leaves instead of marble leaves to the statues. Whatever the case, within a few generations of dick Popes, statues across Europe lost their manhood.
Of course, this doesn't explain why they're all missing their members. The Bacchus statue by Michelangelo may have been mutilated purely to make it look more antique. It seems that no matter where you look, history is rife with a strong hate towards anything penisy.





Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_18762_7-priceless-works-art-ruined-by-staggering-acts-idiocy.html#ixzz15krtpHuq

[KillCapitalism]

8. LOL

Was the statue more hung before or after? That's all I wanna know.

[fascisthunter]

9. good one!

[Sheepshank]

10. I have a suggestion

Perhaps this could be used to 'mask' the penis?



or maybe this?



and this would come with it's own set of interpretations lol

[applegrove]

11. A guy I worked with when I was 18 told me that in the vatican there was a

room full of stone penises. Some pope had them all knocked off the statues in Rome but, as they were art, they were not thrown out. I believed it at the time. Don't know if I do now.