Newsgroup: it.politica.pds
Titolo: Truth, Lies and Berlusconi: Italy's playboy premier accused of nudity cover-up

TRUTH, LIES AND BERLUSCONI: ITALY'S PLAYBOY PREMIER ACCUSED OF NUDITY
COVER-UP 
The Guardian
(John Hooper in Rome - Monday August 4 2008)
If there is any political leader on earth who would feel untroubled by the
proximity of a lightly clad beauty, then it is surely Silvio Berlusconi.
The media mogul and Italy's prime minister made a large part of his
fortune televising variety shows packed with scarcely veiled, undulating
female flesh. One of the members of his cabinet - the equal opportunities
minister, Mara Carfagna - was until just a few years ago a topless model
and showgirl on one of his television channels.
So it was with something approaching incredulity that it emerged yesterday
that Berlusconi's staff had perpetrated an act of censorship worthy of the
Victorians who fitted skirts to table legs.
Over the table at which Berlusconi holds press conferences in Palazzo
Chigi, Italy's equivalent of No 10 Downing Street, hangs a huge copy of a
painting by the 18th-century Venetian master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. It
was selected by Berlusconi himself.
Slap in the middle of the painting is a neat, round female breast. During
press conferences, as a commentator writing for the daily La Stampa noted,
the breast floats above the prime minister's head "like a halo". This, it
was felt, was too much for the sensibilities of a nation that - long
before Berlusconi came along - had been feasting its eyes on half-naked
Magdalenes and Minervas, not to mention the blatantly erotic statuary of
Antonio Canova. Tiepolo's breast, with attendant nipple, had to go.
Photos taken of the most recent press conference at Palazzo Chigi show the
central figure has been retouched. An extra fold of clothing has appeared
that covers the offending breast.
Berlusconi's chief spin doctor, the junior minister Paolo Bonaiuti, told
Corriere della Sera it was "an initiative of those on the staff of the
prime minister who take care of Berlusconi's image". He went on: "That
breast [and] that nipple ended up right in the shots the news bulletins
used [for coverage of] the press conferences."
He added that the prime minister's image advisers feared that such a sight
might offend the sensibilities of some television viewers. What is clear,
however, is that the elimination of the breast, and its accompanying
nipple, has offended at least as much the sensibilities of some of
Berlusconi's own admirers.
The art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, who was a junior culture minister in an
earlier Berlusconi government, said : "I truly hope the decision to carry
out this absurd, crazy, pathetic, comic and useless retouching has been
carried out without [Berlusconi's] knowledge. All the more so if the idea
was to do him a favour by not associating in the public mind a boob with
someone who is - how to say? - susceptible to female charm."
Photos published yesterday showed the painting untouched in May. It
appears therefore to have been covered at around the time the prime
minister was becoming entangled in a succession of controversies involving
women friends and associates.
Last month, he cancelled a television interview in which he was to have
answered questions about his relationship with the 32-year-old Carfagna
and the alleged existence of tapes of compromising exchanges between them.
Carfagna has refused to comment on the claims, saying only: "I don't deal
with telephone intercepts, with gossip, with nonsense."
At the same time, a court in Rome has been hearing a case brought by the
ex-husband of a TV announcer who claims he lost his job because of the
71-year-old Berlusconi's relationship with his estranged wife. The prime
minister's lawyers have heatedly disputed his allegations.
The Tiepolo controversy carries an added layer of interest because the
lady who has been tampered with in the allegoric work is Truth. And her
semi-nudity is central to the meaning of the work, entitled Time Unveiling
Truth, painted around 1743.
In a very literal sense, it is about the "naked truth". Floating on a
cloud in one of Tiepolo's hallmark, duck-egg blue skies, Truth cosies up
to an elderly, bearded Time who has just apparently stripped her to the
waist. In one hand, Truth holds a mirror that reflects her semi-nudity to
a figure representing Lies. Unable to cope with the sight, he covers his
eyes.
Opposition politicians can be expected to note that, now Truth has a new
top fitted by Berlusconi's image consultant, Lies should feel altogether
more at ease in the office of Italy's prime minister.
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