Botticelli's Venus is an 'influencer' and Italy is not happy

The Italian tourism ministry thought it had a sure-fire way to bring travelers into the country: Turning a 15th century art icon into a 21st century "virtual influencer."

The digital rendition of Venus, goddess of love, based on Sandro Botticelli's Renaissance masterpiece "Birth of Venus," can be seen noshing on pizza and snapping selfies for her Instagram page. Unlike the original, this Venus is fully clothed. The influencer claims to be 30, or "maybe just a wee bit older than that."

But the new ad campaign is facing significant backlash with critics calling it a "new Barbie" that trashes Italy's cultural heritage.

The tourist campaign "trivializes our heritage in the most vulgar way, transforming Botticelli's Venus into yet another stereotyped female beauty," Livia Garomersini, an art historian and activist with Mi Riconosci, an art and heritage campaign organization, said in a response to the project last month.

The yearlong campaign, produced by national tourism agency ENIT and advertising group Armando Testa, is estimated to have cost 9 million euros (about $9.9 million), according to ENIT CEO Ivana Jelinic.

Jelinic said that the campaign was designed for overseas markets to attract younger tourists. The online Venus launched in Italy on April 20 and made her international debut in Dubai at the Arabian Travel Market earlier this week.

"We liked the idea that it would be a work of art that is timeless," Jelinic told The Associated Press, adding that Botticelli's Venus "seemed to us like a immortal icon who could represent Italy well."

Already the new Venus has been memed mercilessly online, appearing among trash bins, alongside Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, and in other less-than godly places.

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