Botticelli's Venus is an 'influencer' and Italy is not happy
Sandro Botticelli's iconic goddess of love in his 15th-century masterpiece “Birth of Venus” has now become a “virtual influencer” in a new Italian tourism campaign
ROME (AP) — The Italian tourism ministry thought it had a sure-fire way to bring travelers into the country: turning a 15th century art icon into a 21st century “virtual influencer.”
The digital rendition of Venus, goddess of love, based on Sandro Botticelli’s Renaissance masterpiece “Birth of Venus,” can be seen noshing on pizza and snapping selfies for her Instagram page. Unlike the original, this Venus is fully clothed. The influencer claims to be 30, or “maybe just a wee bit (older) than that.”
But the new ad campaign is facing significant backlash — with critics calling it a “new Barbie” that trashes Italy’s cultural heritage.
The tourist campaign “trivializes our heritage in the most vulgar way, transforming Botticelli’s Venus into yet another stereotyped female beauty,” Livia Garomersini, an art historian and activist with Mi Riconosci, an art and heritage campaign organization, said in a response to the project last month.
