It is not yet known whether the elderly visitor to the Borghese Gallery was the victim of an illness (Stendhal Syndrome was excluded) or if she tripped over the pedestal surrounding the painting. She certainly was about to fall tumbling to the ground when she tried to support herself by clinging to a masterpiece: al St. Francis receives the stigmata (1610) by Guido Reni giving him a 4 cm scar.
The accident happened around 4 pm yesterday – May 4 – while the tourist visited the exhibition “The sacred and nature”, set up to celebrate the Roman phase of the great Bolognese classicist. The most probable hypothesis is that the accident occurred due to the setting up of the Mariano Rossi room which provides a sort of ring with a central square closed to visitors. But above all a ground base, in iron, on which it is easy to stumble.
There are precedents
It seems that the incident – according to the accounts of guardians, guides and tourists – that other visitors also had problems with that particular setting that allows to expose the altarpieces by Reni above the Roman mosaics of the fourth century AD brought by the Borghese in the middle of the nineteenth century from one of their properties on Prenestina.
The painting
The area was promptly cordoned off and today – 5 May – the official in charge of the Municipality of Rome, owner of the work, “will evaluate the methods of intervention to restore the crack”. The painting was on loan from the museum of Palazzo Braschi. Painted on both sides, front and back, the work yesterday suffered damage only on the face with the poor man from Assisi receiving the stigmata.