The Missing Penis

Everything erodes; people and creations decompose. Nothing lasts forever, and that is the way it should be, however an infrastructure as old and as vital as Italy’s has to be maintained. Buildings have to be remodeled and repurposed to keep up with the effects of time, increases in population and wartime destruction. The Fiorentini still cross the Arno on half a dozen reconstructed bridges. They shop in small botteghe and they meander through the ancient backstreets; they visit banks, museums and churches that have been modified and renovated.

Paintings and sculptures also degenerate. Over the past several centuries most of the great canvases have been repainted, or “restored”, by different artists and experts and that they continue to look as fresh and vivid as the day they were affixed to a wall in the Palazzo Vecchio, five hundred years ago. They are bright and crisp but they are no longer the individual efforts of Salviati or Carracci or Giotto. The artists had important patrons, the Catholic Church and Italian noble families championed them, and their paintings are hanging in all the museums of the world. They are a delight to behold and some can be life changing. But those paintings are now collaborations by committees of artists, curators, administrators and politicians.

The master’s underlying theme is intact, the drapery and backgrounds are reminiscent of the original intentions, but the colors are a bit too intense, the faces are too similar and the shading is not quite right. There is a notion that the masterpieces are too valuable to be left to the vagaries of age and weather. The degenerative processes of time and moisture and light must be stopped. So, the paintings and sculptures are restored and repaired on an ongoing basis. Some of the attempts at refurbishing have been devastating, but the art is also very popular and the museums know who puts the pesto on their pasta and they keep the valuable creations in a perfectly preserved, unnatural and artificial condition. Who the hell wants to travel all the way to the Uffizi and see a deteriorating Botticelli? Who would pay fourteen euros to see Venus without her magnificent beauty?

“Momma, where is that man’s penis?”

At least I think that’s what the kid said. My Italian is coming along, but they speak so fast. I was thinking the same thing, though.

Where have all the penises gone? There is evidence of missing anatomy and absent digits on all the statuary. Fingers, noses, heads, and penises. Anything that sticks out, up and away is liable to be broken off after a thousand years. Most noses are replaced; lean in close and you can see the hairline cracks where they’ve been mortared. Fingers are added in the same way. Heads? Yes, they are replenished. There is a statue in the Michelangelo room at the Uffizi that has had at least two and possibly three different heads. She looks OK though, reclining luxuriously in her diaphanous robes, at rest, with a thin dark strip around her neck that shows where the most recent noggin has been fastened. And why not? There are, apparently, plenty of heads and fingers and noses lying around.

Are they out of penises? Because penises are left the hell off. You lose your cock, you are right out of luck boyo. Don’t come begging at the back door of the Uffizi, the Bargello, the Opera della Duomo. No dick for you, Giuseppe. Why? What can anyone have against penises? Is there a malicious Catholic cult that has rejected the phallus?  Don’t we love penises? Nearly everyone loves a good penis, even an average one; men, women, children, old and young. It’s a nice, comical, mysterious part of the body that responds to stimulation whether real or imagined. But if it gets knocked off, broken, chipped away, eroded or hammered down? Get out of here. Nothing for you. If you lose your nose, fine, we fix that right up. Your finger’s absent? Well, how are you going to hold on to your panini, your wine, your penis? We have to repair that. And we have a crap-load of craniums waiting in the back room, no worries. But, oh my, you’ve gone and wrecked your wick? Ah, peccato, Pisano, no substitutes. We reject your request. One to a customer. We have standards that go back to antiquity and you can thank the Pope or the Council of Trent or the Victorians, Saint Jerome or Saint Theresa or Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows. Some busybody agreed that we would no longer honor the missing member. As you wander through museums, admiring the extraordinary work of the masters, questioning the restorations and repairs, don’t dwell too long on the ambiguities of the absent knob. It’s another of the great Christian Mysteries like the Eucharist or Virgin Birth.

“Momma, where is that man’s penis?”

“Shut up. No one knows. Be good or that will happen to you.”

You have to love the Catholics.