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Pretty much everyone knows about the horrifying and ongoing trash crisis in Naples as it’s been much covered by the international press. Now, it seems, the news has filtered all the way back to the sixteenth century and has incited such Renaissance celebrities as the Mona Lisa to action.

In protest of the smelly pileups in Naples, the Neapolitan graffiti artist, Raffo, has tasked the iconic star of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous portrait with the job of taking out the trash. In posters painted by Raffo and distributed throughout Naples, the Mona Lisa appears against a new backdrop – the Bay of Naples surrounded by trash. Her usual demure pose – with hands carefully crossed in front of her – has been abandoned in favor of a more active position, for in her hands she clutches nationalistically-colored red and green garbage bags as if she herself is headed down to the dumpster to drop off a bit of refuse. She’ll have trouble with that, of course, because the dumpsters are already full (see image above – we’re particularly fond of the Berlusconi campaign poster hovering over the dumpster in the upper left corner of the photo).