Carmen \u00c1lvarez Cuadrado<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On May 22, 1972, the front pages of newspapers headlined the new that Michelangelo\u2019s famous Piet\u00e0 sculpture<\/strong> had been vandalized in a violent assault on one of humanity\u2019s greatest works of art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It had all happened on Pentecost Sunday morning, just the day before. At 11:30am, a Hungarian geologist\u2014blond, bearded, and wearing a suit\u2014entered St. Peter's Basilica. Everything was normal, until this happened\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n SE\u00c0N-PATRICK LOVETT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Vatican media expert<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wasn't there, but I was close enough because I know people who knew Laszlo Toth. The Hungarian, 33 years of age, who was convinced, they say, from early on, that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. And so he arrived... in St. Peter's Basilica, he jumps over the altar rail with his hammer, because he worked with it, and he is screaming, 'I am Jesus Christ born again.' And he starts to smash the statue before people jump on him and pull him down.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n These are images of the attack: Toth was subdued by security only after he had struck the sculpture 15 times with a hammer. He broke the left arm, part of an eye, and the nose. More than 100 fragments were scattered on the floor\u2014but one of the most important pieces was never found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SE\u00c0N-PATRICK LOVETT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Vatican media expert<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tourists pick up the pieces and put the pieces in their pocket to take away as souvenirs. And when the Vatican restorers come and spend ten months to put together so slowly, so carefully to restore, they find her nose is missing. Somebody took the Madonna's nose and put it in their pocket. To reconstruct the nose, they had to carve a piece of marble to use the same Carrara marble out of the back of the statue to re-carve her nose.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sean-Patrick explains that Toth claimed Jesus was divine and therefore could not have a mother, which is why the blows were directed at Mary and not Jesus. He was never prosecuted. In Italy, he was simply declared a dangerous person, admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and later deported to Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a consequence, a strong security system was installed around the Piet\u00e0, which has been improved over time. It even includes a bulletproof barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SE\u00c0N-PATRICK LOVETT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Vatican media expert<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poor Michelangelo would be very, very sad to see that glass because his idea was that the statue could be seen from 360 degrees to walk around it. Working in the Vatican, I had the opportunity to walk behind the glass and to touch, can we say that on TV, to touch the statue. It is like... It is soft. The marble is not hard. It really feels like somebody's skin.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 50 years later, there are still those who remember what happened and how it shocked the world. And although one original piece is still missing, perhaps never to be found, this has not stopped the famous sculpture from attracting millions of visitors every year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carmen \u00c1lvarez Cuadrado On May 22, 1972, the front pages of newspapers headlined the new that Michelangelo\u2019s famous Piet\u00e0 sculpture had been vandalized in a violent assault on one of humanity\u2019s greatest works of art. It had all happened on Pentecost Sunday morning, just the day before. At 11:30am, a Hungarian geologist\u2014blond, bearded, and wearing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":758,"featured_media":90413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/xOU_H35yWys","video_descarga":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/battentatopietaeng.mp4","international_url":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/battentatopietaint.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90412"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90417,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90412\/revisions\/90417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}