Editing Pietà (Michelangelo) (section)

==Vandalism==
{{Main|Vandalism of Michelangelo's Pietà}}
[[File:Pietà vaticana dopo il vandalismo, 1972.jpg|thumb|A detail view of the statue with damaged arm, nose and eye, May 1972]]
The most substantial damage occurred on 21 May 1972 ([[Pentecost]] Sunday), when a mentally disturbed geologist, the Hungarian-born Australian Laszlo Toth, walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a [[geologist's hammer]] while shouting, "I am Jesus Christ; I have risen from the dead!"<ref>{{cite news|title=Time Essay: Can Italy be Saved from Itself?|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,905967,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101022182752/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,905967,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 22, 2010|work=Time Magazine U.S.|publisher=Time Inc.|access-date=26 August 2012|date=June 5, 1972}}</ref> With 15 blows he removed Mary's arm at the elbow, knocked off a chunk of her nose, and chipped one of her eyelids.

An American national, [[Bob Cassilly]] from [[St. Louis, Missouri]] was one of the first people to remove Toth from the ''Pietà''. He recalled the following events:

{{Blockquote| "I leaped up and grabbed the guy by the beard. We both fell into the crowd of screaming Italians. It was something of a scene."<ref>{{cite web |last1=O'neill |first1=Anne-arie |title=Creature Features |url=https://people.com/archive/creature-features-vol-48-no-23/ |website=People Magazine |access-date=15 September 2019}}</ref> }}

Onlookers took many of the pieces of marble that flew off. Later, some pieces were returned, but many were not, including Mary's nose, which had to be reconstructed from a block cut out of her back.

After the attack, the work was painstakingly restored and returned to its place within the basilica, just to the right of the entrance, between the [[holy door]] and the altar of [[Saint Sebastian]], and is now protected by a bulletproof [[acrylic glass]] panel.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vatican-pieta-idUSBRE94K0KU20130521|title=Vatican marks anniversary of 1972 attack on Michelangelo's Pieta|date=2013-05-21|work=Reuters|access-date=2019-09-03|language=en}}</ref>