A new mural of Marxist
philosopher, political theorist and martyr to Fascism Antonio
Gramsci on a Florence council housing block has caused a row in
Italy.
The centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party said Gramsci
(1891-1937) was undeniably an important intellectual and a brave
anti-Fascist politician, but at the same time a convinced
Communist-Leninist, and asked "can such a figure reconcile
himself with the values of freedom and democracy that should
unite us?"
The rightwing nationalist Brothers of Italy (FdI) party accused
Florence's centre-left city council of "filling (Florence) with
huge murals with a blatant ideological message: an iconography
that recalls that of totalitarian regimes, but without coherence
and courage".
The mural is the work of street artist Jorit, who put up a mural
of Nelson Mandela on another municipal block of flats two years
ago.
He started the new mural with a famous quotation from Gramsci's
Prison Notebooks: 'The crisis consists precisely in the fact
that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this
interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.'
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
