With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

For Italy’s Populists, Everything Is a Nationalist Cause. Even Leonardo.

In a small showroom filled with replicas of Leonardo da Vinci masterpieces, Lucia Borgonzoni, Italy’s under secretary for culture and a member of the right-wing League party, attested to the authenticity of her disgust with the French.

She accused France of trying to culturally appropriate Leonardo for a 2019 exhibition at the Louvre celebrating the 500th anniversary of his death. And that was just the beginning.

France had treated Italy with “a lack of respect” and like a cultural “supermarket” by “sending a shopping list” of the works it wanted to borrow — essentially everything.

Read entire article at NYT