The shot just as he was in front of the cameras, then the tackle of an activist of the latest generation in the midst of the raid-smearing at Palazzo Vecchio.
The mayor of Florence Dario Nardella absolute protagonist, at least for one day, of social media, with a series of videos that soon went viral. The mayor of the Tuscan capital was recording a video for social media to explain the progress of the restoration of the sculptures in Piazza Signoria when he realized that behind him, a few meters away, they were defacing the facade of the city's monument building.
He didn't think about it for a moment: he started running, behind two municipal police officers and, having arrived on the arengario, blocked a 32-year-old who was shooting orange paint (water) with a fire extinguisher on the stones of the facade. "What the f*** are you doing?" he yelled. A 23-year-old woman was blocked by the police, also with a fire extinguisher loaded with paint. Then, again the mayor got together with others to clean up, climbing onto a scaffolding equipped with a hydrant and a brush.
The activists were protesting against the "rejection by the budget committee of the Senate of the Republic of some amendments to a bill concerning the cutting of various environmentally harmful subsidies (SAD)" and the "concomitant approval of the questionable and outdated project for the bridge over the of Messina". As for the Municipality of Florence, the accusation is that it «continues to make choices incompatible with the need to reduce polluting emissions» . For Nardella it was an act of incivility: "They are barbarians, this is not how their ideas are expressed, it is not by raping cultural heritage, beauty : they should protect civilization, beauty, not insult and disfigure it" .
In the end , the timeliness of the cleaning operations was decisive and prevented much worse damage : more than 5,000 liters of water were consumed to clean the entire facade of Palazzo Vecchio and the Municipality specified that the paint used "is very dangerous for the historical and porous stones of the building». «The destruction of Palazzo Vecchio is yet another reckless action, pure vandalism without any extenuating circumstances - the words of the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano -. These are not demonstrative gestures without damage, because in addition to the considerable cleaning costs that fall on the community, the consequences on the image of Italy, intimately linked to the national cultural heritage, must be considered. We are working on strengthening the sanctioning system, especially on rules that make those responsible pay for the costs of cleaning and restoring the places".
The two activists were reported to the judiciary for soiling buildings of cultural or landscape significance, for an unauthorized demonstration and failure to comply with the expulsion order issued by the police station for three years: they had already been reported on 12 February, together with two other people, for the soiling of the Regional Council of Tuscany in Florence.
(Unioneonline/D)