{"id":2386,"date":"2026-02-13T12:13:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=2386"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:13:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:13:58","slug":"italian-broadcaster-accused-of-censoring-leonardo-da-vincis-vitruvian-man-in-winter-olympics-coverage-winter-olympics-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=2386","title":{"rendered":"Italian broadcaster accused of censoring Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Vitruvian Man in Winter Olympics coverage | Winter Olympics 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Italy\u2019s state broadcaster, Rai, has been accused of censorship after removing the genitals from the image of Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Vitruvian Man in the opening credit for its Winter Olympics coverage.<\/p>\n

The image of the 500-year-old drawing appears at the start of the clip<\/a> before transforming into the bodies of ice-skaters, skiers and other winter sports athletes.<\/p>\n

The imperfection was first picked up by Corriere della Sera<\/a>, which asked: \u201cWhat happened to the Vitruvian Man\u2019s genitals?\u201d<\/p>\n

The newspaper noted that all the other attributes of the Vitruvian Man\u2019s body appeared to have been faithfully reproduced, \u201cexcept for that one detail\u201d, which appeared to have been \u201credacted\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>The original drawing.<\/span> Photograph: Dea Picture Library\/De Agostini\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Backlash from the Italian opposition, which often accuses Giorgia Meloni\u2019s far-right government of dominating the public broadcaster, was swift.<\/p>\n

Deputies from the centre-left Democratic party have raised questions over the matter in parliament, urging culture minister Alessandro Giuli to \u201cshed full light on the use of the image of Leonardo\u2019s da Vinci\u2019s Vitruvian Man in the Olympics opening credit broadcast by Rai\u201d.<\/p>\n

The politicians want to know if Rai was formally authorised to reproduce the Renaissance artist\u2019s drawing, which they described as \u201can absolute masterpiece\u201d, and whether permission for the image\u2019s alteration was granted by the custodians of the original works.<\/p>\n

Irene Manzi, the Democratic party group leader of the culture committee in the lower house of parliament, said Leonardo\u2019s Vitruvian Man \u201cwas tampered with and censored, with the genitals from the original works removed \u2026 an incomprehensible and unacceptable choice\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDid Rai really go so far as to alter a Leonardo?\u201d Manzi asked.<\/p>\n

Rai said the accusation of censorship was another \u201cspurious\u201d controversy \u201cimproperly\u201d targeting the public broadcaster, and dismissed it as \u201cyet another fake news story\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a>, the broadcaster explained that the management and production of the opening credit was entrusted to the Olympic Broadcasting Service and not to Rai, \u201cwhich limited itself to broadcasting the official opening credit without any possibility of intervention or modification\u201d.<\/p>\n

The debacle comes amid protests<\/a> from Rai sports journalists in response to blunders made by the network\u2019s sports director, Paolo Petrecca, throughout his commentary on the opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics<\/a>. Petrecca mistook the Italian actor Matilda De Angelis for Mariah Carey. The journalists\u2019 union, Usigrai, said reporters for news programmes across the network\u2019s channels would on Friday remove their bylines from their work in a show of solidarity with their sports colleagues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Italy\u2019s state broadcaster, Rai, has been accused of censorship after removing the genitals from the image of Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Vitruvian Man in the opening credit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}