Talk:Vandalism of Michelangelo's Pietà

Requested move 4 April 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. There is a consensus to move the article per nom. I acknowledge that there is also calls for a merge to the statue article, which discussion and/or action can be carried out independently of this discussion. – robertsky (talk) 01:26, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

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Laszlo Toth → Vandalism of Michelangelo's Pietà – Toth is not notable for anything other than this one incident. It clearly falls under WP:BLP1E. —Chowbok ☠ 12:31, 4 April 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 11:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 10:17, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Support move to a name that is in common use Subject appears to be notable only for this one event. Taking WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRECISION into account, what should the article be titled? Vandalism of Michelangelo's Pietà, 1972 attack on Michelangelo's Pietà, or something else? Οἶδα (talk) 23:56, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Sources analysis:

https://web.archive.org/web/20111106095407/http://www.stlpublicradio.org/programs/commentaries/commentary.php?cid=1310
Brief comment attesting to Bob Cassilly's momentous role in subduing Toth after his attack on the Pietà

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/22/archives/pieta-damaged-in-hammer-attack-assailant-with-hammer-damages-the.html
News report recounting the event, the restoration issues, the statue's creation, and identifying Toth and his criminal detention, the pope's reaction, the statue's transfer and presentation at the 1964 New York World's Fair, future protection plans, and Toth's bizarre conduct and his living arrangement and lifestyle.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/28/archives/a-hammer-for-the-madonna-pieta.html
News item briefly recounting the event and identifying Toth in 3 sentences, 7 sentences mentioning other similar events and 6 sentences commenting on the repair process.

https://books.google.com/books?id=60ba0VmXVM8C&pg=PA202
Book by an art historian on iconoclasm and vandalism which dedicates one paragraph to the events of Toth's act of vandalism, his behavior therein, his criminal proceeding and their conclusion that Toth has "not been heard of since"; one paragraph summarising the "archetypal analysis" of the event by two Canadian literary critics (titled The Attack on the Pietà: An Archetypal Analysis as well as another philosophical interpretation by a French author and psychological labels by a German writer; one paragraph of biographical information by the aforementioned German writer recounting Toth's Hungarian and Australian origins, his education, work history, his behavioral changes, ideology and residence in Italy; and one paragraph analyzing his motives within his identification with Michelangelo and Jesus Chris and how his "idiosyncratic and desperate self-realization followed paths that singular artists and collective definitions of artistic activity had also trodden and helped to lay down to some extent."

All of the sources would suggest Toth is notable for this one event and that he has remained exceedingly low-profile, so much so that basic bio details about him remain unknown and rely on unreliable articles (see talk discussion above) and unverifiable internet comments (also see above). There's a Wired article about Toth from 2006, but it repeats all of the same information and speculation. I am not an expert of WP:BLP1E and I understand that it is often misunderstood so if the application here is not appropriate I would encourage other editors to participate and clarify. Οἶδα (talk) 07:24, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Sculpture, WikiProject Australian crime, and alian Wikipedians' notice board have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 11:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose but leave a redirect No need to rename an article on a person to a title that isn't even a name Servite et contribuere (talk) 04:35, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Huh? What do you mean, "isn't even a name"? I have no idea what you're talking about.—Chowbok ☠ 05:17, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Chowbok I mean isn't the name of a person Servite et contribuere (talk) 05:18, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

That's actually the point. This article shouldn't be named after the person, but after the event. The event is notable; the person is not.—Chowbok ☠ 18:35, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

When I asked for community input this is not what I had in mind. What you posted displays a superficial understanding of this topic and of Wikipedia policy in general, and is honestly barely comprehensible. Οἶδα (talk) 07:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Support move to a name for the event. This is Wikipedia policy as the person is of no consequence.--Grahame (talk) 05:10, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Redirect to Pietà (Michelangelo). Actually on reflection, there is actually nothing in the article of significance, including his putative death.--Grahame (talk) 01:47, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

IMHO there is no need to move the article. Just add whatever content is present in this article but missing from the article on Michelangelo’s Pietà to the latter. It is quite common for Wikipedia articles to have overlapping texts or content and there is no harm in that.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.186.147.123 (talk)

Another random editor dropping in to make an unsubstantiated post displaying no understanding of this topic or of Wikipedia policy. What a disappointment of a move discussion, Chowbok. I don't know why I expected more for an article that has been neglected for two decades by those actually interested in upholding Wikipedia's core non-negotiable editorial policy of neutral point of view, no original research and verifiability. I should have just bit my tongue and let your initial move proceed. Furthermore, to this IP editor: you just altered the date without any sources except an edit summary citing French Wikipedia's citation of an "Italian source" which, without even having to consult that frwiki article, I know is the article published by Wanted in Rome, which in this case is a highly unreliable source as I discussed in detail at Talk:Laszlo_Toth/Archive_1#No_reliable_evidence_that_the_subject_is_deceased. Οἶδα (talk) 05:46, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Delete Ditko comic under pop culture

The current citation for the Ditko comic has suffered link rot and redirects to spam. Archive copy shows that it was not very high quality in the first place. I tried searching JSTOR and a few news databases and found no academic or news sources. Google shows only a blog post, some ebay copies, and a Kickstarter for a new edition of the comic. Given the lack of high quality sources discussing the Ditko comic Lazlo's Hammer, it may be best to simply delete that part of the entry. Ghrossman (talk) 03:54, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

I only restored the reference because the entry was still in the article, so I thought we might as well have an archived copy of the source that was originally added to the article rather than no context at all. I hesitated to remove it altogether myself because the text here seemed to suggest the influence was a non-trivial part of the work. If we cannot find any mainstream coverage at all then it probably would be best to remove it. Οἶδα (talk) 05:56, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

While there is at least one blog describing the Ditko comic as discussing Laszlo's act of vandalism in a significant manner, I failed to find any reliable source establishing that. I agree that, absent a reliable source discussing the significance of the comic, the item should be removed from the article. If no one finds a reliable source in the next day or two, and no one else has done so, I will remove the mention. If anyone does find a reliable source, the item can be restored. Donald Albury 16:12, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

My primary hesitance here has been the fact that we're talking about a non-trivial influence in a work by Steve Ditko, aka one of the most popular creators in the history of comics. I would have removed it from the article immediately if that weren't the case. Οἶδα (talk) 19:31, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

brutalist relation comment

comment within source:

</!-- DO NOT ADD THE BRUTALIST CHARACTER; SEE TALK PAGE --/>

I see nothing on this talk page referencing The Brutalist. can someone explain? Bubribcageinferno (talk) 18:17, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't see a specific discussion of the character from The Brutalist in the history of this talk page, but there have been several attempts to add a mention of that character to the article that have been reverted because there has been no reliable source offered that makes a connection between the character in the film and the man who vandalized the statue. It has also been noted that there are a number of people named László Tóth, and we need reliable sources, not just a similarity in names, to mention a connection in the article between any of them and the man who vandalized the statue. Donald Albury 19:31, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

got it, thanks! Bubribcageinferno (talk) 20:32, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Donald Albury @Bubribcageinferno. Apologies for the confusion. There actually was a discussion here about this issue. For some reason it was archived at Talk:Vandalism of Michelangelo's Pietà/Archives/ 1#Edit Warriors, but that archive isn't linked here, and Talk:Vandalism of Michelangelo's Pietà/Archive 1 already exists. Weird. Sounds like the same issue Aidan9382 discussed at Talk:Big_Pharma_conspiracy_theories#Broken_archives. We should probably fix that.

Anyway, as I recall, there were several reliable sources that gave this Laszlo Toth a passing mention in their coverage of The Brutalist, but I suspected that to be speculation on their part because none of the articles actually confirmed the connection to be "factual", as a user who accused me of improperly removing the material from this article boldly claimed it was. This was all put to bed when I found a USA Today article which interviewed Brady Corbet's partner and co-writer Mona Fastvold. In it, Fastvold confirms that the character sharing this name was merely a coincidence. As has been stated on this talk page a couple times now, it is important to understand that "László Tóth" is essentially the Hungarian equivalent of "John Williams". Fastvold herself alludes to this fact in the USA Today article, likening it to "John Smith".

Also important to note that this article was located at Laszlo Toth at the time, not at its current title. Vulture published an article titled "The Brutalist Trailer Will Have You Googling László Tóth" and, sure enough, if you check the pageviews for this page at the time you'll see that, between The Brutalist's Venice premiere in September 2024 and the Oscars in March 2025, this article received over half a million pageviews.. That is greater than the article's total pageviews before 2024. So, after The Brutalist was added here for the umpteenth time on the night of the Oscars ceremony, I removed it and added the comment to counteract the enormous traffic driven to this page that inevitably results in more unsourced additions connecting the two unrelated subjects. We could always remove the warning now that the page has been moved from that name, though it seems harmless. Οἶδα (talk) 20:59, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I remembered there was such a discussion, but couldn't find it. Thanks for supplying that link. Donald Albury 22:49, 20 March 2026 (UTC)