A tourist ran into a Vatican museum today and knocked down two busts from the ancient Roman period, and the staff stopped him before he could do more damage. reported Italian media.

The investigation is ongoing, and according to the initial information, the man was around 50 years old and "behaved strangely". Media reports say he knocked two busts off their pedestals in the museum's Chiaramonti Hall, which contains more than 1.000 works of art and is one of the most important collections of Roman busts. It is added that the employees of the museum quickly restrained the man, and the Vatican police arrived a few minutes later and arrested him.

According to Italian portals, the perpetrator is a tourist, an American who allegedly destroyed the busts because he was not allowed to see Pope Francis.

The busts were damaged, but not seriously, the source said, adding that they had already been taken to the restoration laboratory for repair. Photos taken by visitors and posted on social media show the two broken busts lying on the marble floor.

It is recalled that the most infamous attack on works of art in the Vatican took place in 1972, when a Hungarian man jumped over the side altar in St. Peter's Basilica and struck Michelangelo's Pietà statue with a hammer, damaging its left arm and severing its limbs. nose and veil, and since then this Renaissance masterpiece has been behind impenetrable glass.