Statues covered up: In my mind it depends where it comes from. - If the visiting Iranian delegation requests it I would say it&#x27;s a little ignorant and petty for a visiting foreign representative to request something like that. You have to know Italy has naked statues in it. There&#x27;s no way you can&#x27;t know that. Asking your host entity to cover them up because you don&#x27;t like them (or like them too much?) strikes me as extremely arrogant and haughty.
- If it comes from the Italian Government, I&#x27;d say it&#x27;s somewhat disingenuous. If they&#x27;re so much a problem, they shouldn&#x27;t be there in the first place, and if they aren&#x27;t, it&#x27;s just showing the Government is ashamed of it&#x27;s own culture which is kind of weird.
- If it&#x27;s just the museum going &quot;Hey this guy is visiting, his culture doesn&#x27;t really dig this kind of thing, why don&#x27;t we be polite and cover it up&quot; I think that&#x27;s perfectly acceptable and frankly very polite of them to do.<p>As to his aides asking him not to be photographed next to the statue: Who cares? It&#x27;s his image, let him maintain it how he sees fit.