Botticelli’s Venus like Chiara Ferragni: the irony of the influencer

A blonde eating pizza against the backdrop of an expanse of water. This image to the fans of Clare Ferragni will perhaps bring to mind a shot that the influencer posted, from Lake Como, in 2020. Three years later, the ministry of tourism, launching a campaign – already much talked about – on beauties of Italy, has chosen among others an image of the Botticelli’s Venus «influencer» very similar to Chiara’s shot. And now the wife of Fedez meant (with irony) his: «In June 2020 I had been asked to be the face of a ministerial campaign to promote our country in the world», he wrote in the Instagram Stories, adding: «I had accepted on condition that I could do it for free and revealing the secret of pizza that regenerates». A joking reference to the uproar sparked by the 2020 photo that showed her intent on devouring a slice of the square even if hers, on her plate, was intact: «The pizza regenerates, I want too the pizza that grows back on its own while you eat it», the followers had commented at the time.

Now that photo seems to have even inspired the Ministry of Tourism. What is certain is that in the new campaign one of the most famous faces in the history of art, the one painted by Sandro Botticelli in his “Birth of Venus” of 1485, he was transformed into a “virtual influencer” complete with an Instagram profile (@venereitalia23). This digitized Venus, in addition to eating a nice Neapolitan pizza on Lake Como, bike pose in front of Colosseum in Romeyou do a selfie in San Marco square in Venice and so on.

The campaign, entitled “Italy – Open to wonder”, cost the beauty of nine million euros. And he unleashed an avalanche of criticisms. Oliver Toscani he paved it like this: «Classic example of a campaign that wants to please everyone and nobody likes it. A series of banalities put together, the Venus, the Ferragni. Anything that seeks consensus creates mediocrity, and this is an example of it: to seek consensus they created mediocrity». Now Chiara also wanted to say something about her. With a post in the Instagram Stories – accompanied by laughing face – which aroused opposite reactions: there are those who appreciated the irony, and those who panned Ferragni for having compared herself to Botticelli’s painting. A comparison that, to tell the truth, she was not the first to point out.

-Professor Anselmi at an event of Chiara Ferragni: «She is my idol, I don’t understand who is a snob»

-Chiara Ferragni, who does not appear in the documentary on Sanremo 2023 (because of Fedez?)

-Chiara Ferragni and Fedez, has the crisis really passed?