The city of Florence will present an award to a US school teacher who had to resign after some parents deemed it “inappropriate” for her to show images of Michelangelo’s David to her 11 and 12-year-old students.
The mayor, David Nardella, will personally invite the teacher Hope Carrasquilla, while Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Accademia Gallery, where the sculpture is exhibited, extended an invitation this Monday to the parents of the students to explain the difference between ” nudity” and “pornography”.
“I am amazed with these parents, David is the symbol of the Renaissance that puts man at the center of attention in his perfection as he was created by God. He is a religious figure, he is the expression of our European culture, the Renaissance has no absolutely nothing pornographic,” the director told local media.
For Hollberg, associating this icon with pornography derives from a “distorted” vision, since David “is the quintessential work of art, so clean, so sober and clear in its expression.”
For his part, the mayor of Florence assured on his social networks that “confusing art with pornography is simply ridiculous.” “I will personally invite the teacher to Florence to give her recognition on behalf of the city. Art is civilization and whoever teaches it deserves respect,” Nardella announced last Saturday on her Facebook profile.
Michelangelo’s David sculpture, one of the symbols of the Italian Renaissance and quintessential example of the classical canon of beauty, is one of the best-known works of art in the world. Sculpted by Michelangelo, the statue represents the nude biblical king, whose life is described in the books of Samuel, recognized as a prophet in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
However, last week the US press announced the resignation of Hope Carrasquilla, a school principal from Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, who had to leave her post for having shown the work in class.
Carrasquilla, who has been teaching in public, private and “autonomous” schools for 20 years, explained that the reason was that the sixth grade arts program included classical sculptures of nude characters such as David, something that was not liked by parents and other managers.
The president of the school, Barney Bishop, confirmed to the channel that he gave Carrasquilla an ultimatum and explained that he supports the creation of a law that gives parents more control over the education their children receive during primary education.
The parents complained because they do not like “woke (progressive) indoctrination”, according to the president, although the local press specified that their complaint had to do with not being informed in advance of the type of images their children were going to see. .
At the initiative of Governor Ron DeSantis, who was re-elected in 2022 for four more years and seems determined to be a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024, a set of laws have been approved in Florida that prohibit not only teaching but also talking about certain topics in public schools, such as gender identity, sexuality, systemic racism and others.
