The four Ultima Generazione activists, all in their twenties, risk up to three years in prison after they staged a sensational raid on November 4th in Rome , defacing Vincent Van Gogh's painting "The Sower," on display at Palazzo Bonaparte, after throwing a vegetable puree. The Prosecutor's Office has ordered them to be summoned to trial.
The trial has been set for next October 12th before the judge of the single-judge court of Piazzale Clodio. The investigators are charging them with the crime provided for in article 518 duodecies relating to “defacement of cultural or landscape assets”. According to the prosecution, the four activists “in collusion with each other and after concert, defaced, by throwing a vegetable puree, the painting, taking from it the protective glass, the frame and the display panel on which the painting was affixed”.
The prosecutors of Piazzale Clodio also charged the three suspects with violating some orders issued by the Rome Police Commissioner, months before the blitz, prohibiting them from returning to the capital after taking part in roadblocks. The painting, which was created by the Dutch painter in 1888, was protected by glass and after an initial assessment that ruled out damage to the canvas, it was put back on display at the Capitoline exhibition. The frame, however, suffered minor damage from the demonstration, which was also immortalized in a video that later appeared online. The group, after entering the exhibition by regularly paying for their ticket, threw soup in the direction of the painting.
Then the girls glued their hands to the wall before the arrival of the carabinieri who stopped them and reported them to the judicial authorities. In the meantime, the magistrates of the city are waiting for communications from the Superintendence on the damage to the Barcaccia fountain, hit with black liquid on April 1st by another group of three environmental activists, to evaluate the possible accusation of defacement or damage. A liquid based on vegetable carbon was used to dye the water of the fountain. Just today, during some preventive checks by the police in the metro stations in Rome, the patrol cars and the Digos intercepted and stopped six people belonging to the environmentalist movement 'Extinction Rebellion', in their backpacks they had several packs of glue.
