Italy’s state broadcaster, Rai, has been accused of censorship after using an image of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man with the genitals missing in the opening credits for its Winter Olympics coverage.
The image of the 500-year-old drawing appears at the start of the clip before transforming into the bodies of ice skaters, skiers and other winter sports athletes.
The imperfection was first picked up by Corriere della Sera, which asked: “What happened to the Vitruvian Man’s genitals?”
The newspaper noted that all the other attributes of the Vitruvian Man’s body appeared to have been faithfully reproduced, “except for that one detail”, which appeared to have been “redacted”.
Backlash from the Italian opposition, which often accuses Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government of dominating the public broadcaster, was swift.
Deputies from the centre-left Democratic party have raised questions over the matter in parliament, urging the culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, to “shed full light on the use of the image of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man in the Olympics opening credit broadcast by Rai”.
The politicians want to know if Rai was formally authorised to reproduce the Renaissance artist’s drawing, which they described as “an absolute masterpiece”, and whether permission for the image’s alteration was granted by the custodians of the original works.
Irene Manzi, the Democratic party group leader of the culture committee in the lower house of parliament, said Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man “was tampered with and censored, with the genitals from the original works removed … an incomprehensible and unacceptable choice”.
“Did Rai really go so far as to alter a Leonardo?” Manzi asked.
Rai said the accusation of censorship was another “spurious” controversy “improperly” targeting the public broadcaster, and dismissed it as “yet another fake news story”.
In a statement, the broadcaster said the management and production of the opening credit was entrusted to the Olympic Broadcasting Services and not to Rai, “which limited itself to broadcasting the official opening credit without any possibility of intervention or modification”.
The debacle comes amid protests from Rai sports journalists in response to blunders made by the network’s sports director, Paolo Petrecca, throughout his commentary on the opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. Petrecca mistook the Italian actor Matilda De Angelis for Mariah Carey. The journalists’ union, Usigrai, said reporters for news programmes across the network’s channels would on Friday remove their bylines from their work in a show of solidarity with their sports colleagues.
The Vitruvian Man row is the second genital-based controversy of the Games so far. Claims that ski jumpers were injecting hyaluronic acid into their private parts to increase the surface area of their suits became known as Penisgate.
