A quick question from Florence – what happened to the penises?

When I travel I keep my itinerary minimal. Maybe it was that couple my then husband and I rendezvoused with in Switzerland, during our extended honeymoon in the mid-90s, that prompted this approach. You see, they* were the type of travelers who had an extended and detailed schedule for each and every day of their vacation. We paired up with them for a couple of days of travel and I promised myself that would never happen again.

And it didn’t.

I arrived in Florence yesterday and considered what sort of things I might enjoy doing while I’m here. I spent nearly a week here last year (and this is the third time I’ve been fortunate enough to visit this city) and I’ve already experienced some of the most popular highlights such as viewing the statue of David, The Birth of Venus and the extensive Boboli Gardens. But, last year I hadn’t the opportunity to go to the Pitti Palace, a place I was interested in primarily because of the Costume and Fashion collection, so I decided to get there this morning.

As the example above illustrates, it was lovely. The clothing was organized chronologically and there were some remarkable, and beautifully curated, displays including burial clothing from the 16th century which had been painstakingly restored to provide a glimpse of what they had been centuries ago. Between those garments and the couture from the most famous of 20th century designers (Christian Dior! Missoni! Gaultier!), I was a very happy girl.

Prior to arriving at that particular gallery, I wandered through an area featuring magnificent paintings, furnishings and sculpture. As I gazed at the beautiful artworks, I noticed a number of the sculptures of men seemed to have lost an integral part of their anatomy.

Let me show you…

I have to confess, it made me a giggle a bit, but after I got that impulse under control, I wondered where did all those penises go? Are these lost appendages perhaps in a collection of their own somewhere? Did they fall or break off intact or was it more of a little bit at a time situation? Lastly, did the men who posed for these statues have any idea that one day, hundreds of years later, they would be on display to the public in their minimized and compromised state?

Does anyone have any knowledge about this topic? If so, please share with a comment. Bonus points if you might be able to explain to me why there are so many works of females which reveal a single breast? And, on a related note, does the state of undress of so many of these pieces of art depicting women with an exposed breast provide the perfect justification for a contemporary woman to abandon her bra?

*Incidentally, they’re no longer married and I’ve come to believe he was most responsible for their Bataan death march programme.