Italians warned of 'missing' art icons

Statue of David, by Michelangelo, is shown without a leg in advertising campaign by CittaItalia Foundation

These are some of the images in a new fund-raising campaign designed to shock Italians into helping maintain treasured works of art and architecture.

"The campaign revolves around this theme: What would Italy be without its cultural heritage? What would our cities, our landscape be?" chief campaign organiser Ledo Prato said in an interview.

Leading the effort is a nonprofit foundation called CittaItalia, which is calling on Italians to make donations, along with suggestions on what should be restored. The ads appear on state-run television under the aegis of the Culture Ministry.

One campaign image shows the Renaissance masterpiece David, which underwent restoration last year, missing his left leg and supported by a metal structure. In another, Christ has been scratched out of The Last Supper.

Italian landscapes are shown but without the landmark monuments that made them famous: Rome without the Colosseum, Pisa without the Leaning Tower, Venice without the Bridge of Sighs.

"Without your help, Italy could lose something" is the campaign slogan.

Last week, a newspaper revealed that one of Rome's biggest tourist attractions, Castel Sant'Angelo, the massive papal fortress near the Vatican, is badly in need of repair. The report embarrassed the government and prompted Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione to pledge $125,000 in emergency funding.

Italy earmarks about $1.7 billion a year to its monuments, or about 0.2 percent of the country's gross domestic product, said Giuseppe Proietti, head of the ministry's research department. Cultural officials and gallery curators have long lamented a lack of state funds to maintain the collections.

The CittaItalia campaign began last year, when more than $375,000 was raised and used to restore an 18th-century organ in a Turin church.