Florence, activists daub facade of Palazzo Vecchio. Blocked by vigilantes and mayor

Excited morning in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, where two environmental activists daubed orange spray paint on the facade of the Palazzo Vecchio. They were immediately stopped by two traffic policemen and... by Mayor Dario Nardella himself, who was present in the square at the time for an inspection of the restoration works on the statues of the Arengario: in a video released by the regional TG3, he is seen climbing over the hedges in front of the Palace with an athletic gesture and hurling himself at one of the two vandals.

During the action, the two defaceers were booed and insulted by the people present in the square at the time. Fortunately, there were already some restorers in the square equipped with fire hydrants (they were needed for the ongoing restorations), who immediately intervened to wet the ashlars of the Palazzo Vecchio so that the paint sprayed by the activists would not penetrate. Even the mayor, armed with a brush, lent a hand to the restorers: another video captures him giving elbow grease. “Uncivilized vandals”: this was the first hot comment of the first citizen interviewed by journalists present in the square.

Some reactions from city politics are already registered. “The paint will be cleaned and the stones will return to their original color, and this is what counts,” say councilors Alessandro Draghi and Jacopo Cellai of Fratelli d’Italia. “It remains to the chronicles the symbolic defacement, which will certainly not help the air to become cleaner, but only to characterize as imbeciles young people who do not represent - fortunately - a generation, but only the latest form of a useless extremism, a sign of the time in which we find ourselves living.”

“As learned, and noted by all unfortunately, in the morning today, a blitz was carried out by a small group of environmental extremists who, having gone into action in Piazza della Signoria, daubed the facade of Palazzo Vecchio. A very serious fact that gives the idea of how by now certain characters are free to color everything, including a historic palace such as the one where our City Hall is located,” say Federico Bussolin and Federico Bonriposi of the League, who polemicize: “We do not ask the Mayor to clean the facades, but political clarity: if on the one hand the Regional Councillor Monni (PD) does his best to apologize towards these phenomena, on the other hand Nardella’s stance is still missing. Does he agree to toughen penalties for those who deface works of art and/or historic buildings as the League is calling for through Senator Borghi?”

Florence, activists daub facade of Palazzo Vecchio. Blocked by vigilantes and mayor

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