Here is an interesting article from Reuters - I noticed the missing hand on this statue the other day:
"In Florence earlier in August, a cook fuelled by a heavy night of drinking, decided to try and climb the 450-year-old statue of Neptune in the central piazza near the Uffizi museum where Botticelli's Birth of Venus is housed. As he fell, he ripped off the left hand of Il Biancone (The Great White One), as the statue is affectionately known to Italians, leaving behind just the internal metal support."
The article is mostly about efforts to raise money for cultural preservation and the hurdles the government faces when turning to the Italian public for help.