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From https://daily.jstor.org/the-talking-statues-of-rome/

The Talking Statues of Rome
Since the 16th century, anonymous authors have been posting provocative political messages on or near these Roman statues.
by Allison Meier
June 18, 2018

In sixteenth-century Rome, an excavated third-century BCE Hellenistic statue began to “speak.” The statue, nicknamed Pasquino, openly mocked the oppressive papal government from his prominent intersection near the busy Piazza Navona. He was later joined by the half-man/half-goat Babuino, the barrel-carrying Il Facchino, the colossal Roman lady Madama Lucrezia, the toga-wearing Abbot Luigi, and the lounging river god Marforio. Known as the Congregation of Wits, the statues acted as places for public dialogue, when anonymous authors pasted short Latin verses satirizing the pope and other authority figures onto or beside their forms.

...The statues have kept talking. Indeed, in 2011, declarations like “Italy is not a brothel” and “The body of Italy is not for sale” manifested at Pasquino in response to the sex scandals around then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Recent clean-up efforts removed the graffiti behind Babuino and relegated the messages at Pasquino to an adjacent board. But, as Gilbert writes, during the restoration when the statue of Pasquino was wrapped up, “there appeared one day the following pasquinade: ‘Potete pure fasciarlo ma Pasquino non stara mai zitto’ (You can wrap Pasquino well but he will never shut up).”

Read the full article at https://daily.jstor.org/the-talking-statues-of-rome/