Tourist Behavior by Metin Kozak & Nazmi Kozak

Author:Metin Kozak & Nazmi Kozak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

4 Old and New Narratives Between Tourism and Heritage

This paradoxical encounter between tourist gaze and national narrative has defined modern Italy: it has shaped both its politics and its cultural tourism, which, despite their differences, may be seen as a long wave of the Grand Tour.

A good example of this continuity is the use of Michelangelo’s David. This Renaissance masterpiece, created between 1501 and 1504 and placed at the entrance to the city’s town hall (now known as Palazzo Vecchio), was soon regarded as a symbol of Florence, an independent city-state obliged to defend itself against powerful enemies. Not by chance the architect who designed Piazzale Michelangelo placed its replica at the centre of the terrace overlooking the city. That statue, which had already become a tourist icon, was also chosen as a mark of national identity, able to prove the uniqueness of Italian cultural heritage. But, to show this uniqueness, they made a copy (more precisely, a first copy, as a few years later another copy was placed in Piazza della Signoria, since in 1873 the original was moved to the Accademia Gallery). This replica started a transcultural process of serialization of the uniqueness, consistent with the iconic value of the sculpture, which arrived at today’s plastic souvenirs. Nowadays the David is deeply embedded in a global discourse of heritage exploitation and is currently used in commercials, web jokes and even campaigns against globalization.

One of the main uses of the David is connected with its nude “virility”: tourist postcards, pictures and selfies usually point at his penis. In such a playful exploitation of his image, we can discern another traditional element derived from the Grand Tour gaze and implicitly present also in Foster’s novel: Italy as a place of moral otherness and sexual laxity, where the northern visitors could experience what was prohibited or not accepted in their countries. This situation has inspired the myth of the Latin lover, where, once again, the imagery of visitors paradoxically meets the proud self-representation of the visited. The David has become a symbol of this image of Italy, which is still alive and active, as tourist behaviour in front of the statue and tourist postcards confirm.

This attitude, however, goes beyond tourist industry and even includes present politics, which, in a loop, contributes to defining the tourist image of the country and its cultural policies. In 2015 the then Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, decided to host the last meeting of a bilateral summit with the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, inside the Accademia Gallery, just at the foot of the David original statue. Once again, the intention was to present the image of a country proud of its extraordinary heritage and, as Renzi claimed, founded on beauty and ready to revive its Renaissance (Melotti 2016a). We have to recall that Renzi had been mayor of Florence and his narrative about Renaissance is strongly related to this phase of his political life. It was a strong message, which, despite its alleged novelty, used the

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