A man toppled two ancient Roman busts Wednesday at the Vatican Museums and caused moderate damage to both statues before being stopped by museum security.
The man, a middle-aged American who has not been publicly identified, allegedly knocked the busts in Chiaramonti Hall down after the Vatican refused to let him see Pope Francis. The first was knocked down in anger, but the second occurred as he fled, according to the Italian publication Il Messaggero.
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“These are minor works, two small busts, and now the experts are weighing the damage and proceeding to recover the fragments for immediate restoration,” an unidentified museum source told the outlet.
Both statues were held in the museum’s Chiaramonti Hall, which houses more than 1,000 pieces and is one of the most important collections of Roman portrait busts. Although the pieces are around 2,000 years old, they are thought to be secondary artworks rather than the Vatican’s most famous pieces, which include artwork by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Titian.
The man has since been turned over to the Italian authorities, according to a museum spokesperson.
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The incident was not the first in which someone attacked art in Vatican City and elsewhere in Italy.
A Hungarian man in 1972 attacked Michelangelo’s Pieta with a sledgehammer after leaping over a side altar in St. Peter’s Basilica. And, more recently, a Canadian woman was caught carving her name into the side of the Colosseum in Rome in July.
