Italy’s tourism minister has come under fire after replacing a Botticelli painting of Venus used in an advertising campaign with a real-life student.
A version of the naked woman emerging from the sea on a scallop shell in Sandro Botticelli’s 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.
Daniela Santanchè, the tourism minister, has now announced an updated campaign in which Francesca Faccini, 23, will pose as Venus.
The late 15th-century painting by Botticelli
ALAMY
Daniela Santanchè, left, introduces the campaign’s new star
SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL
Santanchè said having “a real girl, in flesh and blood, who will tour Italy to promote our beauties” was a revolutionary move in the age of digitisation and artificial intelligence.
“She will live the extremely diversified experiences that all tourists can have, highlighting the extraordinary variety of our nation,” the minister said.
Italy’s regions would be the protagonists, Santanchè added, combating the “undertourism” of out of the way places.
Faccini, an aspiring actress who is studying psychology at university in Rome, made her debut on Instagram.
The campaign shows Faccini as Venus enjoying what Italy has to offer
However, the campaign has attracted criticism. Domani, a newspaper published in Rome, compared the real-life Venus to Pinocchio.
“After the puppet who wants to be a child, now we have Botticelli’s Venus,” the paper wrote, describing Santanchè as “impervious to all criticism”.
The minister’s choice of words in presenting the initiative, saying that Italy’s tourism communication needed to be more sexy, has also been attacked.
“She is speaking about [Faccini] as though she was a package, but a sexualised package,” the online news website Qui Finanza wrote. “A criticism that comes from hundreds of comments under the official declarations of the ministry.”
• 21 of the best places to visit in Italy
Santanchè 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.
The campaign is described as Venus “stepping out of the poster and coming to life” and “a story that becomes experience, encounter, presence”.
“In an age dominated by the digital, choosing a real, physical presence is a powerful statement: a human gaze that conveys values, beauty, and identity,” the campaign says. “A mosaic of different experiences that together become wonder.”