Five Artists Selected for Florence Courthouse Artworks

The winners of a 2015 Florence municipal competition to create artworks for the Palazzo di Giustizia and surrounding Novoli area have been announced. The selected artists are Shigeru Saito (Japanese), Antonio Violetta, Sislej Hxafa (Albanian, based in New York), Virginia Zanetti, and Mauro Pace (working with Saverio Villirillo and Gregorio De Luca Comandini). Pace and Zanetti, under 35, will receive €70,000; the others up to €136,000. Chosen from 228 applications, the works must be delivered by 2017 and address themes of human relations with justice and civil rights. The call was issued under Italian Law 717 of 1949, requiring public administrations to allocate a portion of construction costs for building embellishment. Florence is among few cities to have applied this law.