a smiling warrior and a bureaucrat

It was an exchange of cultural gifts that should have fostered a greater sense of goodwill and mutual appreciation between two cities, one in China, the other in Italy. When Florence gifted a bronze reproduction of Michelangelo's David to Ningbo to help boost trade ties, the Chinese city reciprocated. The trouble was, it did so by donating two enormous and decidedly unprepossessing stone sculptures for which the Florentine authorities have struggled to find a suitable home.

The two pieces, a smiling warrior and a bureaucrat, are reproductions of Tang dynasty figures. Weighing in at four tonnes each and standing almost four metres (13ft) tall, they bear little resemblance to the delicate statues more usually associated with Florence.

Residents have made it clear they find them ugly and overbearing and do not want them on show. Ever since they arrived last year, the vast socialist realist monoliths have been stashed in a freight warehouse, gathering dust, despite instructions from the Chinese to place them near greenery and running water.

Officials in Florence cannot now persuade local residents' committees to accept the Chinese statues, even if they are tucked away by roundabouts on the outskirts of town. "How about an international location, like the airport," the committee chairman, Giuseppe d'Eugenio told newspaper Corriere Fiorentino after he refused the statues.

"They are ugly and too imposing," added Andrea Ceccarelli, a second residents' representative. "They would also block the views of motorists at a roundabout and be dangerous."

There matters would have rested had it not been for the decision by the Chinese to send a delegation from the city in Zhejiang province to Italy later this month to inspect the cultural artefacts. And so, like some plot in a slapstick movie, Florence city officials are desperately casting around for somewhere to display the statues before the Ningbo delegation arrives this month. Councillors are now worried that when the truth emerges, the Ningbo David could be knocked down in revenge, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

It was all a different story two years ago when the Michelangelo reproduction was unveiled to fireworks and live TV coverage in Ningbo. Then, the Chinese city's website gushed that the cultural exchange reflected the "success of dialogue between east and west".

City official Silvano Gori, who backed the exchange of statues to help "establish a bridge for businessmen from China and Italy to exchange ideas," blamed Florentine stuffiness for the rebuff. "Every time you try something different in Florence there is a row," he said.