Six months in jail for serial provocateur who set fire to David's drape in Florence

He is known in the art world as a serial provocateur: the feats of Vaclav Pisvejc, a painter, known, however, more for his iconoclastic actions than for his paintings, have over the years often gained headlines. From “climbing” up Mimmo Paladino ’s tree to attacking Marina Abramović, from balancing on the Uffizi terrace to defacing Urs Fischer’s sculpture, Czech-born Pisvejc has a long list of at least unusual activities on his resume: the latest of these being the gesture last March, when he set fire to the black cloth with which the City of Florence had decided to cover the copy of Michelangelo’s David in Piazza della Signoria, as a sign of mourning for the war in Ukraine.

The fire, which was fortunately immediately put out, had nevertheless caused 15,000 euros of damage to the 19th-century sculpture, created by Luigi Arrighetti, due to the blackening of a large part of its surface, which made it necessary to clean it with specific products in a week-long intervention. Conviction for that act has now arrived: in fact, Pisvejc was sentenced in an abbreviated trial to six months’ imprisonment, although for the crime of defacement and not arson (this was in fact charged against him by the prosecution).

In addition, in the trial against Pisvejc, “the Municipality of Florence has constituted itself as civil plaintiff,” Palazzo Vecchio announced, “and has obtained damages amounting to 26 thousand euros. An award that goes to cover both the material damage and the image damage suffered by the City in the face of an act against our historical and artistic heritage and therefore against the entire UNESCO World Heritage city.”

Six months in jail for serial provocateur who set fire to David's drape in Florence

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