Florence court backs image rights for works of art

In a ruling on the masterpiece, the Court of Florence recognised the existence of the right to the image of cultural property, the Accademia Gallery of Florence announced, which houses the work that attracts millions of visitors a year.

The Accademia brought the case after “a famous publishing house, without the concession to use the image of the David and without paying any fee, published on the cover of one of its magazines the sculpture modified with the ‘lenticular cartotecnica’ mechanism and therefore superimposed on the image of a model, all in an openly advertising key”.

Although since 2017 there has been a precautionary measure from the Court of Florence that provides that the image of the emblematic sculpture of the Renaissance genius Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) could not be reproduced without authorisation, especially in the case of advertising or commercial use, this ruling for the first time recognises the existence of the “right to the image of cultural heritage as an expression of the right to the collective identity of citizens”.

Henceforth, therefore, illicit use of this iconic work for commercial purposes will be prohibited, the Accademia, one of the most visited museums in the world, said in a statement.

The court accepted the state prosecutor’s assertion that “the image of cultural heritage is an expression of the cultural identity of the nation and its historical memory that must be protected in accordance with article 9 of the Constitution, a foundational value of our legal system”.

“The publisher, insidiously and maliciously, approximated the image of David to that of a model, degrading, eclipsing, mortifying and humiliating the high symbolic and identity value of the artwork, subjecting it to advertising purposes,” the court said.

The ruling establishes that the unauthorised reproduction of the image of David resulted in “a material damage linked to the non-payment of the fee for the use of the property” calculated at €20,000, in line with the museum’s rates.

The Florentine museum said it was the “first judgement of merit” of this kind.

Last August, also in Florence, the famous Uffizi Gallery took legal action against the French fashion house Jean Paul Gaultier for the use in its designs of the image of one of the gallery’s most important paintings, The Birth of Venus (1485), by Sandro Botticelli, without permits or payments of the corresponding royalties “as required by law”.

ANSA