Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Italian PM Matteo Renzi admire the bronze statue of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius during their meeting. Gregorio Borgia/AP/Press Association. All rights reserved.'Cover them up, for goodness sake' or similar pleas were no doubt uttered on the day that Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, and Italy's Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, held a joint press conference at Rome's Capitoline Museum on 25 January.
Historic statues at the museum were boarded up for the occasion. Rouhani's delegates said their president didn't want photos appearing of him standing next to an occasional artistic marble breast or penis.
Various newspaper commentators and a deluge of netizens on Facebook and Twitter condemned the veiling of nudity as ‘provincial’. Italy, in their view, had committed an act of cultural submission. The common judgement of the people was that Renzi's government should have upheld the values of freedom and put Rouhani in his place.
