ROME.- There was great alarm today in the Vatican Museumswhere a tourist, apparently North American and who asked to see the Pope, he threw to the ground two Roman marble busts that are exhibited in the Chiaramonti Gallery.
The photo of the disaster was posted on Facebook by a tour guide. According to what the Dire agency reconstructed, the episode occurred around noon today and would be the “gesture of an unbalanced” according to the press office of the Vatican Museums.
According to Italian media, the subject was immediately blocked by a tour guide who was in the gallery at the time and, later, by Vatican gendarmes present at the scene.
As confirmed by the Vatican press spokesman, Matteo Bruni, the detainee, who was later handed over to the Italian police, is being questioned. It would be a american tourist that he would have asked to see the Pope and, following a negative response, he reacted with violence, throwing the two busts to the floor.
The two Roman sculptures, of unknown characters, were on a shelf and, despite being thrown forcefully to the ground, they only had non-relevant damages.
“The faces did not suffer great damage, perhaps one of the two specimens had part of its nose broken”, they explained in the Vatican Museums, which ensured that the two pieces They have already been sent to the relevant laboratory to be restored.
The Chiaramonti Gallery – whose name follows Pope Pius VII Chiaramonti (1800-1823) – is located in the gallery that connects the Belvedere Palace with the rest of the Vatican Palaces.
“Composed of nearly a thousand finds of ancient sculpture, the Chiaramonti Museum presents one of the most conspicuous collections of Roman portraits, but it is also rich in examples of ideal and funerary sculpture,” he says. the website of the Vatican Museums.
