The news of dismissal of the teacher in the United States for showing in class David by Michelangelo to students between the ages of 11 and 12 without permission has reached Florence. Your mayor, David Nardellabelieves that the reaction of parents is “the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard“. Although he considers that reaching that extreme in Europe would be more complicated, “given the times” he does not dare to rule anything out. “In this age of specialization we risk losing sight of the values ​​that have sustained modern civilization,” he adds .

Both he and the director of the Florence Academy Gallery, cecilie holberg, they have offered the teacher a tribute after having a “long conversation” with her. “He’ll be here soon for give recognition for bravery of not accepting the ultimatum and remaining consistent with his commitment to teaching”, argues Nardella. The German art historian, who since 2015 has directed one of the most visited museums in the world, confesses that when she found out what had happened, she could not believe it. “I was startled, surprised and scared because it is alarming that there is so much ignorance“, he declares.

The expert attributes it to the ignorance that parents of students from a Florida center have mistaken a “pure” and “innocent” nude from 1504 for a pornographic image. Michelangelo’s art has been altered in the past, his Sistine Chapel was repainted to dress his protagonists and the fig leaf perforations that hid David’s private parts during the Catholic Counter-Reformation are still visible, but Hollberg recalls that the motivations were different.

“Now very little, if anything, is taught about our culture,” he stresses. For this reason, although the scandal has arisen on the other side of the Atlantic, the director considers that we are facing an “unfortunately international” phenomenon, in this case “exaggerated” by the virulence of social networks.

“We are heading to a very strange situation in which a minority rules over the majority. One person said that the David is pornographic and as a consequence there is a international scandal that it becomes politicized and everyone gets involved”, he describes with irony. Hollberg does not want to get into controversy and celebrates that any day of the year, at all hours, even in the pandemic, hundreds of visitors keep their turn to see this admired work. “The museum was built for him,” he says.

Michelangelo’s David arrived at this small building located in via Ricasoli in 1872, with the intention of protecting it from its previous location, in Piazza della Signoria, and surrounding it with other works of the great Renaissance artist. A century and a half later, the museum has grown despite a lack of space to become the second most visited center in Italy. Nearly two million tourists make a pilgrimage each year to admire the corpulent figure and confident expression of the Biblical character, the “perfect sculpture,” as he called it Giorgio Vasari already in the 16th century, a classical beauty that has prevailed in popularity over other representations, such as Donatello’s girlish or Verrocchio’s austere.