Blind sculptor has the last laugh

WHEN blind sculptor Felice Tagliaferri was forbidden to touch one of Italy's most famous statues, he decided revenge was best served not just cold but stone cold. Tagliaferri, 41, spent much of two years creating his marble interpretation of "Cristo Velato," or "Veiled Christ," a 1753 masterpiece that he has neither seen nor touched. Giuseppe Sanmartino's exquisitely detailed sculpture of the body of Christ lying wrapped in a fine shroud is one of the prime tourist attractions in Naples. Busloads of blind and disabled people from throughout Italy came to Tagliaferri's studio near Bologna in northern Italy to take symbolic taps on his chisels. The result is a powerfully rendered life-sized Jesus that Tagliaferri, blind since the age of 14, calls "Cristo (ri)Velato," or "Christ Revealed." "There are so many messages. One is that a block of marble isn't ruined when it is lightly touched by expert hands," he said. "Second, the disabled are sick and tired of waiting for others to decide and tell them what they can and cannot do." In May 2008, Tagliaferri visited the Sansevero Chapel to experience its famous "Veiled Christ" in the only way a blind person can: by touching it. He was blocked, he said, despite his protests that he was a professional sculptor. Now, he is savoring a return to Naples when "Christ Revealed" begins a national tour at the Royal Palace on Saturday. "It's forbidden not to touch," Tagliaferri said.