Eat da Veggies Like da Vinci
A generous Italian-American PETA member is offering to pay $100,000 to erect a permanent testimony to vegetarianism in Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport with a sentiment expressed by da Vinci himself. As Italy faces a mounting debt crisis, PETA has made the country’s new prime minister, Mario Monti, an offer that we hope he can’t refuse.
Illustration: © iStockphoto.com/Ivan Burmistrov | Plaque: © Alfonsodetomas/Dreamstime.com | Wall: © iStockphoto.com/parema
“Our goal is to assist Italy and highlight da Vinci’s passionate, but seldom discussed, refusal to eat meat,” writes PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews in a letter to Monti.
About Da Vinci’s Cruelty-Free Lifestyle
Da Vinci, who appears in PETA’s new Vegetarian Icons postage stamp collection, was such an ardent defender of animals that he sometimes bought caged birds from poultry vendors and set them free. He frequently wrote about cruelty to animals in his Notebooks, writing of the meat and dairy industries, “Endless multitudes will have their little [babies] taken from them, ripped open and flayed and most cruelly cut in pieces” and “Of the beasts from whom cheese is made … the milk will be taken from the tiny [babies].”
What Do You Think?
Do you think Italy’s prime minister should accept PETA’s offer to erect our da Vinci sign?
