It is an incredible story and yet! An American tourist has destroyed two statues in a Vatican museum after being denied an audience with Pope Francis.
The facts happened on Wednesday, October 5, artnet magazine reported. The fifty-year-old strolled through the Chiaramonti Museum, one of the Vatican Museums that houses almost a thousand ancient sculptures, busts, statues, urns and sarcophagi. He then asked to meet the Pope, which was apparently refused.
Individual talks with the high priest are subject to very specific criteria and are prior. However, every Wednesday there is a public hearing in the Place Saint-Pierre, but you must have a ticket for it beforehand.
Faced with this refusal, he angrily threw down the ancient bust that was near him and damaged another work while fleeing. “The tourists at his side were petrified by the scene,” explains the Italian newspaper Il Messagero. Two guards intervened to subdue the man, who did not reveal what he intended to say to the pope.
“The person who toppled the statues has been arrested by Vatican police and handed over to Italian authorities,” the Vatican said in an official statement. A video surveillance system permanently monitors the rooms of the museum.
The works have taken over the direction of the restoration laboratory. Luckily, these are “small works, two small busts that can be restored”.