Court, yes to the right to image for cultural heritage

(ANSA) - FLORENCE, MAY 15 - The court of Florence has recognized, in a sentence on Michelangelo's David, the existence of the right to the image of cultural heritage. This was announced by the Galleria dell'Accademia, which houses the masterpiece and which promoted the cause after "a famous publishing house", without granting the use of the image of David without paying any fee, "published on the cover of its own magazine the sculpture modified with the mechanism of lenticular paper technology and therefore superimposed on the image of a model, all in an openly advertising key".
"For the first time, the existence of the right to the image of cultural heritage is affirmed in a ruling on the merits - explains the museum - as an expression of the constitutional right to collective identity of citizens who recognize themselves in the same nation". In particular, the court, accepting theses supported by the State Attorney, stated "that the image of cultural heritage is an expression of the cultural identity of the nation and its historical memory to be protected pursuant to Article 9 of the Constitution".
Thus, for the judges, the unauthorized reproduction of the image of the David has "caused damage of a patrimonial nature, linked to the non-payment of the fee for the use of the asset (and calculated at 20,000 euros as well as the museum's tariff), but above all a damage of a non-pecuniary nature, quantified at 30,000 euros, since the publishing company with the lenticular technique 'has insidiously and maliciously approached the image of the David to that of a model, thus debasing, obfuscating, mortifying, humiliating the high symbolic and identity value of the work of art and enslaving it for advertising and editorial promotion purposes'". "Another great achievement. A principle has now been affirmed that goes beyond the individual case," says Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. (ANSA).