WHEN "JESUS CHRIST" VANDALISED MICHELANGELO'S PIETA

If somebody had made a lifelike marble statue of you, lying dead in your mother's arms, what would you do?

I know, it's a rather odd question, but something like this must have been flitting through the fevered brain of László Tóth on the 21st of May, 1972, when he launched a savage attack on the Pieta, a statue long extolled as the finest work of Michelangelo and a site of devotion for many of the faithful who visit St Peter's in Rome.

The masterpiece, as you no doubt know, shows Christ, "temporarily dead" after his crucifixion, lying in the arms of his mother, the Holy Virgin. It is renowned for its spellbinding composition and the suppleness and flesh-like qualities that Michelangelo was able to conjure out of eternal marble.

But marble is only eternal when it's not being hit by hammer and chisel. Tóth, a deranged Hungarian who had emigrated some years previously to Australia, struck the artwork with his own hammer, shouting "I am Jesus Christ—risen from the dead!"

In addition to breaking off the left arm of the Madonna at the elbow, he also chipped her nose and eyelid. As for Christ, he continued to lie undisturbed in his stoney slumber.

At the time of the attack, Tóth was 33, the age at which Jesus had died and been resurrected, according to the Bible. Tóth also had a somewhat "Christ-like appearance," something which may have either preceded and partly caused his delusion or have been cultivated once the Messiah mania gripped his feeble mind.

Tóth: Christ with a hammer?

Luckily the statue was successfully repaired -- how, I am not sure -- but definitely to a greater extent than Tóth's cracked sanity. After a couple of years in an Italian lunatic asylum, he was deported back to Australia.

The real hero of the story, however, was Bob Cassilly, a US sculptor who was in Rome on his honeymoon at the time. Seeing a vandal brutalising one of the top artworks in Rome must have ruined the romantic mood. Cassilly immediatekt sprang into action and subdued the Magyar madman before any more damage could be done. Thank God!