SHIFTING a sculpture by one of Scotland’s most feted artists from a historic street has been targeted in a “yarn bombing” protest.

After more than a quarter of a century, Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi’s Manuscript of Monte Cassino has been moved as part of a multi-million pound overhaul of Picardy Place, where Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle was born in 1859.

It symbolises the destruction caused by war and aims to convey a message of peace, hope and regeneration.

Paolozzi was moved to create it by one of the worst battles of teh Second World War, in the southern Italian town of Cassino. It was here that the bombing of the ancient monastery of Monte Cassino occurred in 1944.

However, the decision to relocate the artwork has led a mystery protester or protesters to create the yarn bombing – a protest in which knitted artworks are used to convey a message rather than traditional placards or demonstration.

The woven multi-coloured message reads: “Paolozzi made me for this site to commemorate the battle of Monte Cassino and the Scottish Italian club – please save me.”

Leith-born Paolozzi’s family hailed from Viticuso, near Cassino.

The sculpture, widely considered one of the pioneers of pop art, was moved by an HGV from outside St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral to the gardens between London Road and Hillside Crescent.

The Leith stones were also due to be taken to the gardens, while the Sherlock Holmes statue is to be looked after by firm Black Isle Bronze.

The Paolozzi sculpture, which comprise an ankle, hand and foot, were gifted to the city by Kwik Fit founder Sir Tom Farmer in the early 1990s.

The Herald:

It had been suggested that Hillside Crescent could be the work’s permanent home as the amount of public space outside the cathedral is proposed to be reduced under the current designs.

But Sir Tom insisted: “This is only a temporary move. These sculptures will come back here. I look forward to welcoming a new piazza outside St Mary’s Cathedral.

“I didn’t know Paolozzi terribly well, but he was in my sister’s class at school. You see it was Cardinal Gray who asked me to help out with these sculptures and I was pleased to do so.”

The Herald:

Paolozzi, who died in 2005, said the sculpture was the “back-cloth to my childhood”.

Picardy Place is being revamped to coincide with the demolition and replacement of the St James Shopping Centre.