For Italy’s Populists, Everything Is a Nationalist Cause. Even Leonardo.

In a small showroom filled with replicas of Leonardo da Vinci masterpieces, Lucia Borgonzoni, Italy’s under secretary for culture and a member of the right-wing League party, attested to the authenticity of her disgust with the French.

She accused France of trying to culturally appropriate Leonardo for a 2019 exhibition at the Louvre celebrating the 500th anniversary of his death. And that was just the beginning.

France had treated Italy with “a lack of respect” and like a cultural “supermarket” by “sending a shopping list” of the works it wanted to borrow — essentially everything.