Uffizi Gallery imposes "limits" on tourist selfies for damaging artwork

Europa Press

La Jornada Newspaper, Tuesday, June 24, 2025, p. 5

Madrid. Florence's Uffizi Gallery announced it will impose strict limits on taking selfies and memes inside the gallery after a tourist tore the 17th-century Portrait of Ferdinand de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, while attempting to pose like the painting's subject.

The problem of visitors coming to museums to create memes or take selfies for social media is widespread: we will set very precise limits, preventing behavior incompatible with the purpose of our institutions and respect for cultural heritage , said the director of the Uffizi Gallery, Simone Verde, reported the Italian newspaper La Nazione.

According to the media, the tourist has already been reported for damaging the work Portrait of Ferdinand de' Medici... by Anton Domenico Gabbiani. The work has since been removed for redecoration.

The tourist could be charged with negligent damages if he is found to have acted recklessly. The gallery's cameras captured the moment when the young man, who was being photographed by a woman, took a step back and appeared to stumble.

He then placed his hands on the painting. Realizing the disaster, he pretended nothing had happened and began to look at the painting, but the Uffizi Gallery's staff and security immediately intervened, according to local media.

The incident occurred on the same day that the museum was celebrating the removal of a massive 60-meter crane, placed in the gallery plaza 20 years ago for expansion work on the building.

The accident is reminiscent of what happened recently at Verona's Palazzo Maffei, when a tourist also damaged Nicola Bolla's contemporary work, depicting Van Gogh's chair. The man, accompanied by a woman, waited for security personnel to leave the room before sitting on the chair—made of hundreds of Swarovski crystals—while the woman photographed him. The man smashed the piece into pieces when he leaned on it.