FLORENCE, ITALY – There is a new famous testimonial for the return of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous portrait, the Mona Lisa, to the city of Florence from the Louvre Museum in Paris.
The american actor George Clooney warned that he would make the provocative call for the Mona Lisa to leave its French sanctuary at a bad-tempered press conference in London where he backed Greek demands for the recovery of the Elgin Marbles.
Both the Vatican and the J Paul Getty Museum had sent parts back, Clooney said, raising the question “of whether or not one piece of art should be, as best as possible, put back together.”
“There are certain pieces that you look at and think, that actually is probably the right thing to do,” Clooney said.
A campaign launched by the National Committee for Historical, Cultural and Environmental Heritage together with the Province of Florence has garnered 150,000 signatories petitioning for the return of the painting in 2013.
The return would be of “high historical value, both symbolic and moral,” Committee President Silvano Vincenti said.
“The committee has officially submitted a request for a meeting with the new French minister of culture, Aurélie Filippetti. I am convinced that, thanks to the minister’s Italian origins, she will not only respond positively to our request, she will understand its motives,” said Vincenti.
Uffizi’s director asked, and obtained to be able to exhibit the painting in the Uffizi until January 1914, along with two other masterpieces of the artist from Vinci: The Annunciation and the Adoration of the Magi, after the finding of the famous painting stolen a few months before at the Louvre. The former director of the Office, Giovanni Poggi, contributed to its finding.
Discover more from Florence Daily News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.