{"id":203818,"date":"2025-12-25T20:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T20:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/203818\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T20:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T20:53:11","slug":"italy-picks-real-life-venus-over-botticellis-goddess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/203818\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy picks real-life Venus over Botticelli\u2019s goddess"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italy\u2019s tourism minister has come under fire after replacing a Botticelli painting of Venus used in an advertising campaign with a real-life student. <\/p>\n

A version of the naked woman emerging from the sea on a scallop shell in Sandro Botticelli\u2019s The Birth of Venus has been promoting Italian tourist hotspots since 2023, in a campaign that was ridiculed as overly expensive and in poor taste. <\/p>\n

Daniela Santanch\u00e8, the tourism minister<\/a>, has now announced an updated campaign in which Francesca Faccini, 23, will pose as Venus. <\/p>\n

\"Painting<\/p>\n

The late 15th-century painting by Botticelli<\/p>\n

ALAMY<\/p>\n

\"Daniela<\/p>\n

Daniela Santanch\u00e8, left, introduces the campaign\u2019s new star<\/p>\n

SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL<\/p>\n

Santanch\u00e8 said having \u201ca real girl, in flesh and blood, who will tour Italy to promote our beauties\u201d was a revolutionary move in the age of digitisation and artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe will live the extremely diversified experiences that all tourists can have, highlighting the extraordinary variety of our nation,\u201d the minister said. <\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s regions would be the protagonists, Santanch\u00e8 added, combating the \u201cundertourism\u201d of out of the way places. <\/p>\n

Faccini, an aspiring actress who is studying psychology at university in Rome, made her debut on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

The campaign shows Faccini as Venus enjoying what Italy has to offer<\/p>\n

\"Collage<\/p>\n

However, the campaign has attracted criticism. Domani, a newspaper published in Rome, compared the real-life Venus to Pinocchio.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the puppet who wants to be a child, now we have Botticelli\u2019s Venus,\u201d the paper wrote, describing Santanch\u00e8 as \u201cimpervious to all criticism\u201d. <\/p>\n

The minister\u2019s choice of words in presenting the initiative, saying that Italy\u2019s tourism communication needed to be more sexy, has also been attacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is speaking about [Faccini] as though she was a package, but a sexualised package,\u201d the online news website Qui Finanza wrote. \u201cA criticism that comes from hundreds of comments under the official declarations of the ministry.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2022 21 of the best places to visit in Italy<\/a><\/p>\n

Santanch\u00e8 has insisted that the original version of the campaign was very effective abroad. There was a 3 per cent increase in visitors this year and Italy is vying with Spain to become the most visited country in Europe.<\/p>\n

The campaign is described as Venus \u201cstepping out of the poster and coming to life\u201d and \u201ca story that becomes experience, encounter, presence\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an age dominated by the digital, choosing a real, physical presence is a powerful statement: a human gaze that conveys values, beauty, and identity,\u201d the campaign says. \u201cA mosaic of different experiences that together become wonder.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy\u2019s tourism minister has come under fire after replacing a Botticelli painting of Venus used in an advertising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-203818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}