A tourist at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence damaged an 18th-century portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici by Anton Domenico Gabbiani while taking a selfie on June 21. The man tripped backward onto the canvas, causing a small tear near the subject's right foot. Museum staff quickly removed the painting for assessment, and the work is expected to return to display soon in the exhibition “Florence and Europe: Arts of the Eighteenth Century.” The perpetrator was apprehended and reported to authorities; director Simone Verde vowed to prosecute and implement “anti-selfie measures.”
The incident highlights growing tensions between visitor behavior and artwork safety in museums. A trade union claims the accident was caused by a low, dark platform meant to distance visitors from paintings, which had been flagged as a hazard. Similar accidents have occurred elsewhere, including at the Galleria Borghese in 2022 and at the Palazzo Maffei in Verona earlier this month, where a visitor sat on a fragile crystal-covered chair. The Uffizi director blamed a culture of tourists seeking memes and selfies, signaling a broader institutional push to restrict photography and enforce stricter conduct rules.