It was an exchange of cultural gifts that should have fostered a greater sense of mutual appreciation between two cities, one in China, the other in Italy.
When Florence gave a bronze reproduction of Michelangelo’s David to Ningbo to help boost trade ties, the Chinese city reciprocated. The trouble was, it did so by donating two enormous and unprepossessing stone sculptures for which the Florentine authorities have struggled to find a suitable home.
The two pieces, a smiling warrior and a bureaucrat, are reproductions of Tang dynasty figures. Weighing in at 4 tonnes each and standing almost 4m tall, they bear little resemblance to the delicate statues associated with Florence.
Residents have made it clear they find them ugly and overbearing and do not want them on show. Ever since they arrived last year, the vast socialist realist monoliths have been stashed in a warehouse, gathering dust, despite instructions from the Chinese to place them near greenery and running water.
Officials in Florence cannot persuade resident committees to accept the statues.
“How about an international location, like the airport,” the committee chairman, Giuseppe d’Eugenio told newspaper Corriere Fiorentino after he refused the statues.
Matters would have rested there had it not been for the decision by the Chinese to send a delegation to Italy this month to inspect the cultural artifacts.
Officials are casting around for somewhere for the statues before the delegation arrives.
It was all a different story when the Michelangelo reproduction was unveiled to fireworks and live TV coverage in Ningbo.
Ningbo said the exchange reflected the “success of dialogue between East and West.”
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