A foreign tourist smashed two valuable ancient Roman statues in the Vatican. The incident happened on October 5 in broad daylight.
The NP was recorded in the Chiaramonti Museum, part of the Vatican Museums, which exhibited to the public “one of the best collections of Roman portraits” in the world. About 1,000 works of ancient sculptors were presented to art connoisseurs.
However, after one tourist visited the exhibition, at least two of these statues now face an uncertain future. According to CNN, the man, believed to be American, threw one artifact and then another in anger as he fled the scene. It turned out that the visitor demanded a meeting with the Pope, Il Messaggero newspaper reported. When he was told that the head of the Catholic Church could not meet with him, he allegedly threw one Roman bust on the floor and the pieces scattered to pieces. After trying to escape from the place of the NP, the tourist “caught” another one.
Two works of art were taken to the workshop for damage assessment. Despite being around 2,000 years old, they are considered minor works of art rather than famous works, a source told Il Messaggero. According to La Repubblica, the nose of one bust fell off. Regarding the tourist, a spokesman for the Vatican Museums said: “The person who knocked down the statues was stopped by the Vatican police and handed over to the Italian authorities.”
It is known that Italian legislation is very strict with vandal tourists who encroach on the country’s cultural heritage: violators are subject to huge fines, expelled from the country and banned from further entry. Especially foreign travelers made a mark in the Vatican last summer. So, in July, a Canadian tourist was caught carving his name on the wall of the ancient amphitheater of the Colosseum. At the same time, American tourists were caught wheeling their scooters down the famous Spanish Steps, breaking off a piece in the process. The culprit of the third incident, which was also included in the “black list” of the authorities this summer, was a traveler who arrived in the legendary city from Saudi Arabia and decided to ride in a rented Maserati by the same architectural icon.