Gun-Toting David Provokes Italian Fury
In 1527 his arm was smashed by rioters. In 1991 a man attacked his toe with a hammer. Now, however, Michelangelo‘s David has suffered arguably his greatest indignity to date. To the horror of many in the Italian cultural establishment, the world-famous marble statue has been pictured in an advertisement cradling not a slingshot but an American-made rifle. An image of David brandishing an AR-50A1 sold by ArmaLite, a 60-year-old Illinois-based small arms engineering company, has provoked such ire in Italy that the culture minister took to Twitter to demand the advert be “immediately” ditched. I can’t get up in arms about David being up in arms: if Duchamp could paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa, why can’t a statue pack heat?
