Twenty-five years after the extraordinary prank played by three students, the city of Livorno may decide to honour with a permanent exhibition Amedeo Modigliani's three fake heads, far-back "abandoned" in a warehouse owned by the local council.
It was the summer of 1984, when Michele Gherarducci, Pierfrancesco Ferrucci and Pietro Luridiana, at the time university students, together with the sculptor Angelo Froglia, imitated the Tuscan sculptor's typical primitivism.
With simple building tools they made the eyes, nose and three-stone mouth, threw them into the Fosso Reale and triggered a clamour in the whole country, deceiving influential art critics, who guaranteed that that they were indeed Modì's sculptures.
The famous 1984 prank caused a great commotion.
In that year, on the occasion of an exhibition for the centenary of Modigliani's birth and dedicated to his sculptures, it was decided to verify whether a popular local legend was true, the legend according to which the master from Livorno would have thrown into the Fosso Reale some of his sculptures.
Indeed, according to this belief, in 1909 the artist returned temporarily to Livorno deciding to realise some sculptures which he then displayed at the Caffè Bardi to artists he was friends with, who mocked him suggesting that he throw them into the canal.
Dragging the canal near Piazza Cavour, in 1984 three sculptures were found, which represented three heads, attributed very soon by many critics to Modigliani.
After a few days the group of three students from Livorno confessed that one of the sculptures was actually their work.
They even showed a photo portraying them with the sculpture.
Afterwards even the author of the other two heads came out and revealed his identity; it was Angelo Froglia, a painter from Livorno who stated that what he had done was not meant to be a jibe, but rather an "aesthetic-artistic operation" to verify "to what extent people, critics and the mass-media create myths".
A colossal joke, which still causes debates in Livorno.
The three works were displayed a first time in Lugano, in 1999, and a second time in Livorno, six years later, at an exhibition visited by 40 thousand people in ten days.
An unexpected success.
Indeed, some people are even thinking of realising a permanent exhibition.
"For the time being, a permanent exhibition of the three statues is only an idea that we are working on - claims Mario Tredici, councillor responsible for culture in the City of Livorno - although it is not among the council's priorities.
However, we are convinced that it is not a decision to make alone, but with the involvement of the sector experts".
Even Vittorio Sgarbi intervened in this situation: "I would display those works, as a provocation, in the city's Museum of contemporary art.
If the Tuscan mayor decides to keep them locked up in the cellars, in the capacity of mayor of Salemi, I will ask to have them on loan and as from now I am proposing to organise a spectacular event in their honour".
Always referring to the initiative of organising an exhibition in Salemi and display the "fake Modiglianis", Sgarbi explains "the exhibition in question could be called Il grande inganno (The great deceit), or given that I recall very well the opinions of the critics then, I vestiti dell'imperatore (The emperor's clothes).
I would place the three heads in the middle of the room and high up, to point out the opinions expressed by the main experts after they were found".
Even the mayor of Livorno, Alessandro Cosimi, intervened in the debate about the three heads realised for a joke, stating: "I would like to sell Modigliani's three fake heads, and buy something, a work by Modì - and he added - the idea of a permanent exhibition does not come across to me as a good idea.
We would risk falling into negative provincialism.
In 2004 we displayed the three fake heads and it was a triumph with the public.
However, I would not want Livorno to remember Modigliani only for the pranks.
Instead, I would like to sell them to have the money required to buy a drawing, an authentic work by the great artist from Livorno".
However, "the prank of 25 years ago was very good - said the mayor of Livorno smiling - there was irony in how power was mocked in an amusing way".
One who would like a permanent exhibition is one of the three authors of the prank, Pietro Luridiana: "They are three foul copies, it is true, but how can we not define them as art? He wonders - what counts is the idea, the ingeniousness of the act, more than the reproducibility.
Even this, if we agree on the artistic value of a work, can be art.
Therefore, why should people be deprived of the chance to see our fakes? It is a mystery which embitters us, also because we do not understand the reason.
Perhaps there is still some aversion towards us".