Rome (AFP)

By authorizing Wednesday the loan of several works by Leonardo da Vinci to the Louvre, including "The Man of Vitruvius", the Italian justice allows the museum to accommodate all the masterpieces of the artist expected in Paris for the great exhibition that will be dedicated to him.

"Now the great Italian-French cultural operation of the two exhibitions on Leonardo in Paris and Raphael in Rome can start," said Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini on Twitter.

Italian justice authorized Wednesday the loan of several works by Leonardo da Vinci to the great Parisian museum, including the famous drawing "The Man of Vitruvian", a heritage association did not want to leave Italy.

The administrative court of Veneto (TAR, north-east of Italy) has rejected the appeal filed by the association Italia Nostra, saying that his request "was not sufficiently justified," said the court, opening the way to the loan of works to France.

The court argued that the choice of the Italian government to lend the works, under an agreement with Paris, proceeded from "the exceptional global significance of the exhibition, the aspiration of the country to maximize the potential of its heritage "as well as" the value of cooperation and exchanges between States ".

Seized by Italia Nostra, who considers that the exit of the territory of "The Vitruvian Man" violates the Italian cultural property code, the court had suspended the loan procedure on October 8th.

In its decision, the administrative court also suspended the agreement signed in late September in Paris between the Italian Ministry of Culture and the Louvre for the exchange of works by Leonardo da Vinci and the painter Raphael.

Under this agreement signed by Dario Franceschini and his French counterpart Franck Riester, Rome is to lend five works by Leonardo da Vinci to the Paris museum for the grand exhibition commemorating the fifth centenary of the death of the master of the Renaissance (1452-1519) , held at the Louvre from 24 October to 24 February 2020.

- "Incomprehensible" -

In addition to the famous "Vitruvian Man" held at the Academy Gallery in Venice, four drawings - Study of Landscape, Study for the Adoration of the Magi, and two Studies of Failure - must be lent.

Similarly, copies of the Leda and the Battle of Anghiari from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence will travel to Paris.

These seven works are in addition to thirteen others that various Italian museums have already agreed to lend, after negotiations between museums.

In return, five works by Raphael - two paintings and three drawings - as well as two studies by Giovan Francesco Penni, all of which are in the Louvre, will be loaned to Italy for the Raphael exhibition which will open at the Quirinale in Rome next March.

The Italian Ministry of Culture had judged a few days ago "incomprehensible" the suspension of the loan decided by the Venetian court.

The exchange was decided "according to the specific rules of safeguarding (works) enacted by the museums," he argued, saying he was confident about the final decision.

The previous Italian government, in which the League (far right) of Matteo Salvini had a dominating weight, had renounced to lend the works and marked his bad mood about the exhibition of the Louvre.

He had insisted that Leonardo da Vinci, who died five hundred years ago, was at first Italian, even though he had lived the last three years of his life in France at the invitation of King Francis I.

At the time, Deputy Minister of Culture Lucia Borgonzoni, close to Mr. Salvini, had said that Leonardo "was a great Italian even if a brother on the other side of the Alps would like to make him look like a Frenchman".

© 2019 AFP