Uffizi museum tears a strip off selfie takers after a painting is damaged

Times

9 hours ago

The director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence has promised a crackdown on selfies after a tourist damaged an 18th-century painting while posing in front of it for a photograph.
The visitor tore a hole in the bottom corner of the canvas, a ­portrait of Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, painted in 1712, by Anton Domenico Gabbiani.
The man was apparently trying to assume the same pose as the subject of the painting but stepped backwards and lost his balance. He leant against the canvas which was left with a tear at the level of the prince's right boot.
The visitor was immediately identified by museum staff and reported to police for causing culpable damage. The painting was removed for repair, with experts concluding that the damage was relatively minor.
The incident occurred on Saturday in the ground-floor rooms hosting the Florence and Europe: Arts of the 18th Century at the Uffizi exhibition, the first under the gallery's new director, Simone Verde.
A trade union representing museum workers said the tourist had tripped on a low platform intended to keep visitors at an appropriate distance from the paintings. It had previously highlighted the risk to the museum authorities after another ­visitor had tripped but without causing any damage.
'Visitors are looking at the paintings, not at the ground. Those platforms are unsuitable and too dark,' said Silvia Barlacchi, a staff representative.
Verde said: 'The problem of visitors coming to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant: we will set very precise limits, preventing behaviour that is not compatible with the sense of our institutions and respect for cultural heritage. The tourist, who was immediately identified, will be prosecuted.'
The incident is the latest in a series of accidents caused by visitors behaving unwisely in Italian museums. In another episode captured on video, a man posed for a photograph pretending to sit on a fragile chair covered in Swarovski crystals in the Palazzo Maffei museum in Verona.
The sculpture by the contemporary artist Nicola Bolla reproduces a famous wooden chair from a Vincent van Gogh painting, but is not intended for sitting on. Again the subject of the photo lost his balance and ended up sitting heavily on the chair, causing its partial collapse. The couple fled the museum without informing staff of the damage and as yet have not been identified.
Earlier this year a 16th-century painting by the Renaissance artist Moretto was damaged after a museum visitor in Brescia tripped and fell against it, while three years ago an American tourist fell against a painting by the Baroque master Guido Reni at the Galleria Borghese in Rome.
Visitors to the home of the Mona Lisa share the experience with hordes of smartphone-wielding peers, who are liable to impair viewing pleasure even when they don't trip and fall. The Louvre has announced plans to remedy the situation by creating a 3,000sq m exhibition space entirely dedicated to ­Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece.
The extra space will reduce queues, jostling and the thicket of phone cameras obscuring the view when the Louvre renovation is completed in 2031.