Up to 60,000 euros of fine for vandalizing Italian cultural heritage

The perpetrators of acts of vandalism against works of art, monuments or cultural heritage assets in Italy may be punished with fines of up to 60,000 euros, in addition to criminal sanctions, according to the bill approved today by the Italian government chaired by the far-right Giorgia Meloni.

The Council of Ministers, meeting this Tuesday, decided to impose fines of 20,000 to 60,000 euros, in addition to criminal sanctions, to whom “destroy, disperse, deface, deface, deface, or unlawfully use” so “total or partial cultural property”.

“Attacks on monuments and places of art cause economic damage to the community. Its cleaning requires the intervention of highly specialized personnel and the use of very expensive machinery. Those who carry out these acts must also assume their economic responsibility”, declared the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano.

The legislative project also provides for administrative sanctions of 10,000 to 40,000 euros for those who “disfigure or deteriorate“these goods or the destination”to a use detrimental to its conservation” either “incompatible with its historical or artistic character”, according to the text released by the local media.

The funds obtained with the fines to end acts of eco-vandalism on works of art will be delivered to the Italian Ministry of Culture to be allocated to the “heritage restoration”.

“According to the data provided to me by the Special Superintendency of Rome, the restoration of the Senate façade cost 40,000 euros, well, whoever damages must pay personally”, added the minister about the action of five ecologists on January 2, when they smeared the facade of the Italian Upper House with pink paint.

The activists belonged to the group “Ultima Generazione” (Last Generation), which has claimed responsibility for numerous similar protests in other Italian cities.

On April 1, they poured black dye into the historic Barcaccia fountain in Rome’s Spanish Steps, built between 1626 and 1629, and unfurled a banner demanding to stop investing in fossil fuels.

Last November they threw soup at a Van Gogh painting from a temporary exhibition in Rome and stained with paint the “The Finger” by Maurizio Cattelan in front of the Milan Stock Exchange or the equestrian sculpture of Vittorio Emanuele II in front of the Duomo or cathedral of that city.

On March 17, two other young people stained the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, the seat of the town hall, with orange paint and were arrested by the mayor himself, Dario Nardella.

In addition, two activists are also being tried in the Vatican Court for damaging the base of this Laocoön sculpture with glue in a protest and could be sentenced to prison from one month to three years and a fine of about 3,000 euros.

Source: EFE