View of the Uffizi Museum courtyard, 2024, Florence, Italy.


A Seventeenth-century portrait of Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici was broken when a vacationer tried to take an image with the work for social media on Saturday on the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, Italy.

On a go to to the museum, the younger Italian man in query requested his girlfriend to take a photograph of him with the oil portray, trying to imitate the prince’s pose.

As he stepped nearer to the paintings, nonetheless, the person tripped over a one-foot-tall barrier meant to maintain distance between guests and the work. When he put his hand out to catch himself, the person landed on the panting and tore the canvas. The incident was caught on a safety digicam.

The person has since been recognized and reported to police. Along with prison costs, he may need to cowl for the price of repairs to the portray.

“A vacationer who needed to create some form of meme in entrance of the portray, hanging the identical pose because the Medici prince, ripped the canvas of the paintings,” the director of the Uffizi Simone Verde advised the Telegraph.

“The issue of holiday makers coming to museums to create memes or take selfies for social media is now rampant. We put in place very exact guidelines to attempt to impede behaviour that’s not appropriate with respect for our cultural heritage,” he added.

Ferdinando de’ Medici was the grand prince of Tuscany from 1670 by means of 1713. He was referred to as a patron of music, specifically funding the invention of the piano by instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori. Throughout his time, Ferdinando helped make Florence a hub for music and its practioners.

The Medici household was rose to energy in Florence in the course of the Renaissance, the place they remained extremely influential by means of the 18th century. Although they made their cash in banking, they have been recognized for his or her political ruling and patronage of the humanities.

The portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici was painted by Anton Domenico Gabbiani round 1690. It was on show as a part of the exhibition “Florence and Europe: Arts of the 18th Century on the Uffizi”, which not too long ago opened on Could 28 and is now closed till July 2. The present is anticipated to reopen and run by means of November 28, as scheduled.

This follows information of a person sitting on a breaking a crystal-encrusted Van Gogh chair on the Palazzo Maffei Museum in Verona simply final week.