Milan bans Da Vinci parody

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Sophie Arie in Rome
Friday February 4, 2005
The Guardian


'A tribute to women' ... The Last Supper advertisement for Marithé and François Girbaud


Scantily clad women help sell cars. And there's nothing wrong with using the odd man in a G-string to advertise shoes.
But when a clothes company tried presenting a group of well-dressed women in a Last Supper style pose, their poster campaign was banned in Milan.

The poster, by French fashion house Marithé and François Gribaud, is a version of Leonardo da Vinci's work with an almost all-female cast. Angelic-looking women clad in the company's "casual chic" pose around a long table as Christ and his apostles. One man, John the Baptist, sits on a woman's lap, his torso bare and jeans riding low.

The poster has been plastered on walls, billboards and magazines in New York and Paris for weeks. In Milan, where Leonardo's fresco is preserved and the influence of the Vatican is never far away, city authorities have banned it.

Their decision follows a ruling by the city advertising watchdog last month. This Last Supper "inevitably recalls the very foundations of the Christian faith", said the Istituto di Autodisciplina Pubblicitaria. "This kind of image, with a high concentration of theological symbols, cannot be recreated and paro died for commercial ends without offending the religious sensitivities of at least part of the population."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,1405751,00.html

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1. Milan bans 'blasphemous' poster

By Irene Peroni
BBC News



The half-naked man is one of the "offensive elements"

Dan Brown sparked controversy with his novel based on Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper - now a French clothing company has followed suit in Italy.

The authorities in Milan have banned a billboard featuring an all-female version of the 15th Century fresco, which the fashion house itself says was inspired by the hotly debated book.

The campaign has run without controversy in both Paris and New York.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4236499.stm