ROME – Police arrested an American tourist at a Vatican museum after he defaced two ancient Roman sculptures by throwing them on the floor, authorities said Thursday.
The man tore down the artwork on Wednesday at the Chiaramonti Museum, which is part of the Vatican Museums and houses one of the largest collections of Roman portrait busts.
Italian newspapers reported that the man became angry because he was not allowed to “see the Pope”. A representative of the Vatican Museums told the Washington Post that his motive was unclear.
Photos shared on social media, and confirmed by a museum representative to The Post, showed the damaged busts strewn across the marble floor. One had lost part of its nose and an ear, the museum said.
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Vatican police handed the man over to Italian authorities on Wednesday, Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, told The Post.
A police spokesman said the 65-year-old man had been in Rome for about three days and appeared to be “psychologically distressed”. He was charged with aggravated property damage and released, the spokesman said.
The man had a paid ticket and appeared to be there alone, one of 20,000 visitors that day, Vatican Museums spokesman Matteo Alessandrini said.
“He crashed both busts into the ground, one after the other,” Alessandrini said. The two fallen heads were from the ancient city of Rome, with one representing an old man and the other a young man.
When the first one hit the ground, “the loud crash echoed down the long gallery,” he said. Two Vatican police officers stationed inside the museum arrived within minutes and arrested the man.
Technicians are now working to reassemble the damaged sculptures, which were quickly taken to the museum’s restoration lab after the incident.
The pieces were repairable, but would require 300 hours of restoration work, according to Alessandrini. “The scare was greater than the actual damage,” he said.
Rick Steves, who runs a travel business in Europe, said that while all the artifacts in the museum could be considered precious, the damaged pieces were relatively insignificant.
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For Steves, the downside of these incidents can also be “the loss of access to fine art in general.”
To avoid further incidents, the museum could choose to put in more security, as was the case after a notorious art attack in 1972. That year, a Hungarian geologist attacked Michelangelo’s Pietà with a hammer in the Basilica of Saint Peter, damaging the Carrara marble sculpture. which represents the Virgin Mary holding Jesus after the crucifixion. The statue was later repaired and placed behind bulletproof glass.
“The reality is that you can’t even see the Pietà from the angle that Michelangelo wanted you to see it,” Steves said. “I wanted you to be close.”
Vatican museums, where millions of people a year flocked before the pandemic, reopened last year after coronavirus restrictions closed them or reduced opening hours.
Francis reported from London. Compton reported from DC