Silvio Berlusconi is in the doghouse yet again, and not just because of the 74-year-old Italian prime minister's recent teenage prostitute-attended "bunga bunga" ritual orgy, inspired by those staged in the harem on Libyan dictator Muammar Kaddafi. He also has the art community up in arms, incensed by massive funding cuts for Italian cultural institutions proposed by the country's longest serving leader in modern history. Museums, theaters, parks, libraries, and other tourist sites will close on Friday to protest the country's cultural-budget meltdown and its devastating effects, Artforum reports.

The cultural institutions' decision to shut down for the day comes after the collapse of Pompeii's ill-maintained 2,000-year-old House of Gladiators, an  archaeological loss that furnishes a shocking preview of how destructive even less funding would be for the country, which finds it hard enough to protect and preserve its ancient heritage, let alone bankroll its modern cultural infrastructure.

Venice's Ducal Palace and the new MAXXI museum in Rome are among the cultural institutions that will shut their doors on Friday, November 12th, to show their dissent of the up to $398 million that will be slashed from the national arts budget over the next three years. Culture minister Sandro Bondi, whose department faces $81 million in cuts, has threatened to step down.

"The government sees art as the cherry on the cake in Italy," Marco Magnifico, cultural director of national heritage organization FAI told the Agence France-Presse. "If you pick it off, you can still eat the cake. But art is the cake. It's really embarrassing for Italy."

Berlusconi's image as Italy's generous, if dissolute, caretaker has been badly battered recently. When the prime minister visited several cities in northeastern Italy yesterday following a devastating flood, he was met with threats to withhold regional income tax, insults and calls to resign, and even a smoke bomb.