An image of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa clutching coloured recycling bags was unveiled Wednesday in a fresh appeal to Naples residents to start differentiating their waste.
Graffiti artist Raffo has altered Da Vinci's classic portrait to show the Mona Lisa surrounded by mounds of rubbish, with the Gulf of Naples in the background.
The artist said he would distribute posters of the image throughout the city, which last month fell victim to a serious waste crisis that left its streets buried in piles of household trash.
The army eventually had to be drafted in to dig into the mountains of waste while containers of rubbish were taken out of Campania by road and sea.
''This is an invitation to all the Neapolitans to work together to get out of this sad situation,'' Raffo said.
Gianni De Gennaro, the commissioner appointed by the government to resolve the rubbish emergency, said last month that sorting and recycling were an important part of his emergency plan.
So far efforts to persuade people to start differentiating their waste in Campania have been largely unsuccessful.
Unveiling his latest creation, Raffo explained that he chose the Mona Lisa for his message because it was one of the best-known works in the world.
He said he intended to ''importune'' other masterpieces in the future.
''I was thinking of Van Gogh's Sunflowers,'' he added.
The artist first made headlines earlier this month when posters of his take on Edvard Munch's The Scream went up all over Naples.
The poster showed Munch's screaming man drowning in a sea of rubbish sacks with Vesuvius and the Naples seafront in the distance.
Campania has suffered repeated trash emergencies in recent years after running out of places to put its waste.
