Lebanese University

B1, Institute of Fine Arts

Art Renovation
Pietà’s Vandalism

Executed by Sara Jammoul

Directed by Hassan Badawy

2021-2022
Michelangelo's Pietà on display after renovation, Vatican
City.

Notorious attack on Michelangelo's Pietà occurred

on 21 May 1972.
50 years ago today, a Hungarian man called Laszlo Toth climbed over an
altar rail in St Peter’s Basilica and attacked Michelangelo’s Pietà with a
geologist's hammer, while screaming: “I am Jesus Christ – risen from
the dead.” The body suffered extensive damage from Toth's
approximately 15 hammer blows.
The attack, which took place
in front of horrified pilgrims,
saw Toth knock the
Madonna's left arm at the
elbow, chipping off her eyelid
and a significant part of her
nose.
The 33-year-old Toth was quickly restrained by bystanders, including
the American sculptor Bob Cassily who hit the assailant several times
before pulling him away from La Pietà.
The chapel floor was littered with around 100 fragments from the
statue which Michelangelo carved from a single block of Carrara marble
before it was unveiled in 1499.
Restoration of the Pietà
The Vatican was faced with a
dilemma regarding the
restoration, with art historians
divided on how to proceed.
Some experts said the statue
should remain in its damaged
state, others argued that it
should be fixed
but distinguishing clearly the
restored parts from the original.
The operation saw restorers spend more than five months identifying
all the fragments, some minuscule, before beginning to piece them
together with invisible glue and powder ground from Carrara marble.

Florence restores Michelangelo's Pietà in public

When the painstaking restoration was
complete, about 10 months after the
attack, the Pietà went back on display

- this time behind bulletproof

glass.
Nazzareno Gabrielli, the last surviving member of the team that
restored the statue in 1972-1973, said
there were “a lot of difficult moments in
the debate as the plan of action was
decided, some anxiety, and perplexities
during experimentations in the
laboratory”.

The gaps left after all the fragments were in place were filled with
replacement pieces made from a copy of statue that had been made
from a mould before the attack.

The attack on the Pieta occurred at

11:30 A.M. as St. Peter's and the vast
square outside the church thronged
with Romans and visitors from other
parts of Italy and abroad. The crowd
was waiting for Pope Paul VI to return
to the Vatican from an outdoor mass
on the Janiculum Hill south of St. Peter's so they could receive his
customary Sunday blessing at noon.
Artist: Michelangelo
Year: 1498–1499 – renaissance period
Type: Carrara Marble
Subject: Jesus and Mary, Mother of Jesus
Dimensions: 174 cm × 195 cm (68.5 in × 76.8 in)
Location: St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/the-day-michelangelos-pieta-
was-vandalised-in-a-hammer-attack.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vatican-pieta-
idUSBRE94K0KU20130521
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/22/archives/pieta-damaged-in-
hammer-attack-assailant-with-hammer-damages-the.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0_(Michelangelo)