ROME — A decision to cover up nude statues from Roman antiquity during a visit by President Hassan Rouhani of Iran has drawn ridicule and scorn in Italy — much of it directed at the Italian government — and spurred a debate about the national identity.

The statues, in a corridor leading to a grand hall in Rome’s renowned Capitoline Museums, were encased in tall white boxes ahead of a news conference that Mr. Rouhani held on Monday with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy. One of the statues was the “Capitoline Venus,” a Roman copy of a legendary fourth century B.C. work by Praxiteles; some of the other sculptures were of ancient Greek and Roman gods, dressed minimally, if at all.

As Iran re-engages with the world after reaching an accord last summer to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, the awkward episode seemed like a prime example of culture clash: an austere Islamic government that promotes chastity and piety meets a nominally Roman Catholic but largely secular culture that has a reputation for embracing life’s pleasures.

But it also left Italians asking a basic question: Who ordered the cover-up?

Some media reports suggested the Iranian delegation had asked Italian officials to hide the statues to avoid Mr. Rouhani any potential embarrassment. Other reports fingered nervous (and perhaps overzealous) Italian bureaucrats. One newspaper even reported that in the grand hall at the Capitoline where the two leaders spoke, the lectern was placed to the side — not the front — of an equestrian statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, apparently to avoid having images of the horse’s genitals appear in news photographs.