The Florence museum housing Michelangelo’s statue of David on Sunday invited parents and students from a Florida charter school to visit after complaints about a lesson featuring the statue forced the principal to resign.
Writing on Twitter, Florence Mayor Dario Nardella invited the principal to visit so he can personally honor her.
Confusing art with pornography was “ridiculous,” Nardella said.
Photo: AP
The board of the Tallahassee Classical School last week pressured Hope Carrasquilla to resign as principal after an image of the statue of David was shown to a sixth-grade art class.
The school has a policy requiring parents to be notified in advance about “controversial” topics being taught.
The incredulous Italian response highlighted how the US culture wars are often perceived in Europe, where despite a rise in right-wing sentiment and governance, the Renaissance and its masterpieces, even its naked ones, are generally free of controversy.
Sunday’s front page of the Italian daily publication Corriere della Sera featured a cartoon by its leading satirist depicting David with his genitals covered by an image of Uncle Sam and the word “Shame.”
Carrasquilla believes the board targeted her after three parents complained about a lesson including a photograph of the statue of David, a 5m tall nude marble sculpture dating from 1504. The work, reflecting the height of the Italian Renaissance, depicts the Biblical David going to fight Goliath armed only with his faith in God.
Carrasquilla has said two parents complained because they were not notified in advance that a nude would be shown, while a third called the iconic statue pornographic.
Carrasquilla said in a phone interview on Sunday that she is “very honored” by the invitations to Italy and she might accept.
“I am totally, like, wow,” Carasquilla said. “I’ve been to Florence before and have seen the David up close and in person, but I would love to go and be a guest of the mayor.”
Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Galleria dell’Accademia, which houses the statue, expressed astonishment at the controversy.
“To think that David could be pornographic means truly not understanding the contents of the Bible, not understanding Western culture and not understanding Renaissance art,” Hollberg said in a telephone interview.
She invited the principal, school board, parents and student body to view the “purity” of the statue.
Tallahassee Classical is a charter school. While it is taxpayer-funded and tuition-free, it operates almost entirely independently of the local school district and is sought out by parents seeking an alternative to the public school curriculum.
Barney Bishop, chairman of Tallahassee Classical’s school board, has told reporters that while the photograph of the statue played a part in Carrasquilla’s ouster, it was not the only factor.
He has declined to elaborate, while defending the decision.
“Parents are entitled to know anytime their child is being taught a controversial topic and picture,” Bishop said in an interview with Slate online magazine.
Several parents and teachers planned to protest Carrasquilla’s exit at last night’s school board meeting, but Carrasquilla said she was not sure she would take the job back even if it were offered.
“There’s been such controversy and such upheaval,” she said. “I would really have to consider, ‘Is this truly what is best?’”
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