Two Ultima Generazione (Last
Generation) climate civil disobedience militants on Tuesday
covered Botticelli's Birth of Venus in the Uffizi in Florence
with images of recent disastrous flooding in Tuscany.
The photos of the Campi Bisenzio floods near Florence were taped
to the case protecting the painting.
The pair were arrested.
Ultima Generazione (UG) has staged a series of controversial
headline-grabbing protests in the last two years including
pouring red liquid over themselves outside Florence cathedral
and gluing themselves to the iconic Laocoon statuary group in
the Vatican Museums.
In May last year a protest at the Giro d'Italia by three UG
members was thwarted as the trio was dragged away from the road
at Meolo near Venice before they could stop a breakaway group of
four riders from racing past.
Earlier that month UG staged another act of civil disobedience
to highlight the need to tackle the climate crisis when two
protestors covered themselves in mud outside the Senate in Rome.
Three UG members are currently on trial in Rome for spraying
easy-to-wash-off paint over the facade of the Senate last
January.
Last October several UG activists were fined 3,300 euros
each for public indecency after stripping naked and
blocking traffic in a flash mob on a central Turin bridge.
Other UG members were indicted for spraying wash-offable paint
over Maurizio Cattelan's L.O.V.E. sculpture in Milan a year ago.
In a bid to discourage such actions, the government recently
introduced a bill that would levy fines of up to 60,000 euros on
anyone damaging Italy's cultural heritage.
The bill was slammed as disproportionate and vindictive by the
opposition.
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