(Aug. 1, 2020) This week an Austrian tourist sat on the Paolina Borghese sculpture at the Museo Canova Gipsoteca di Possagno gallery to take a selfie and broke her toes.
This is not the first time tourists have been badly behaved. From fountain frolicking to selfie-stick fighting tourists have been fined thousands of euro and banned from Italy for their bad behavior.
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Vittorio Sgarbi, president of the Antonio Canova Foundation, denounced the “sensational episode” calling the tourist who sat on a precious sculptured foot an “unconscious vandal!”
It happened at the Museo Canova in the Gypsotheca, where the original plaster cast models of Antonio Canova’s masterpieces are kept.
Local news TrevisoToday reported:
“On Friday, an Austrian tourist sat on the sculpture of Paolina Bonaparte causing two toes to break, then hurriedly left the Museum, without reporting the fact. A few minutes after the fact our room guards detected the damage and raised the alarm – the museum managers say – The emergency situation was immediately declared: after the findings made by the carabinieri of the Pieve del Grappa station.”
The Sculpture
It was the original plaster cast model of Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, which was damaged by the thoughtless tourist.
The final masterpiece, marble sculpture is at the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Seen above in the main article image.
Visit the Borghese Gallery in Rome:
Museo Canova in Possagno
Museo Canova
Via Canova, 74
31054 Possagno TV
https://www.museocanova.it/
Antonio Canova is regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists his sculptures were inspired by the Baroque and the classical revival, and has been characterised as having avoided the melodramatics of the former, and the cold artificiality of the latter.
Possagno, a town in the province of Treviso was Canova’s birthplace. The museum displays not only the plaster cast models (that is, the original statues of which many marble copies, the replicas, are disseminated around the world), but also oil and tempera paintings, drawings, memories, clothes, tools, books and other personal items.
Italy Travel News by Milanostyle.com/travel-news
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