Visitor trips and tears Renaissance painting at Brescia museum
A 16th-century painting by Italian Renaissance artist Moretto was damaged on Friday after a visitor at the Santa Giulia Museum in Brescia, northern Italy, tripped and fell onto the valuable artwork, Ansa reported.
The canvas, known as Stendardo dei Disciplini (‘Banner of the Disciplini brotherhood’), wasn’t hung on a wall but placed inside a panel along a special exhibition route.
"A lady lost her balance and, as she fell, placed a hand on the canvas,” museum director Stefano Karadjov said.
The accident resulted in a significant tear in the bottom-right corner of the artwork.
"The damage is fully recoverable since the cut is clean, without fraying, and there has been no loss of painted surface," Karadjov said.
Restoration work is expected to begin this week, with expenses “entirely covered by insurance,” according to the museum’s director.
The damaged artwork, which dates to between 1520 and 1522, is regarded by art experts as one of the most important pieces of Brescia's Renaissance collection.
The artwork is double-sided, portraying the Virgin Mary together with two brotherhood members on one side, and prophets Enoch and Elijah under a tree on the other.
Its painter, Moretto da Brescia, is considered one of three great masters of the early Brescian Renaissance alongside Romanino and Savoldo.
Italian Deputy PM Salvini hails Trump for showing that ‘a new world is possible’
Deputy PM Matteo Salvini praised US President Donald Trump at a Patriots for Europe summit in Madrid on Saturday, saying that he “has shown us that a new world is possible,” according to Ansa.
“It’s not the EU that legitimises the States, but the States that legitimise Europe, which otherwise wouldn’t exist,” Salvini said.
"I am here in Madrid to talk about work, youth, security, the future, and changes” aimed at doing in Europe “what Trump is doing in the USA,” he added.
Leaders of parties in the Patriots for Europe group, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the leader of France's National Rally, Marine Le Pen, and the head of the Netherlands' PVV party, Geert Wilders, gathered at a rally in the Spanish capital under the slogan of ‘Make Europe Great Again’ – a nod to Trump's ‘Make America Great Again’ electoral slogan.
Both Orban and Le Pen hailed Trump as a "tornado" showing the way forward for the EU, which they accused of being plagued by "climate fanaticism", "illegal immigration" and "excessive regulation".
Besides praising Trump’s return to power, Salvini railed against German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, accusing him of “want[ing] to send NATO troops to Greenland” instead of “thinking about German workers”.
“I hope the German voters reward Scholz and give him a one-way ticket to Greenland," the League leader said.
Salvini also hit out at Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez in relation to his recent acquittal in a high-profile migrant blockade trial.
He said: "In the end, I was acquitted, we won. Pedro Sanchez and the left-wing NGO lost [...]. Bye Bye Pedro, bye bye NGOs, long live freedom."
Searches for two missing climbers continue in Lombardy
Search operations continued on the Grignetta peak, in Lombardy’s Orobic Alps, on Sunday after two climbers were reported missing on Saturday, according to Ansa.
Italy’s Alpine Rescue Team said that four teams were involved in the search, with officers on the ground aided by drones equipped with thermal detection technology.
According to Ansa, the missing climbers were both residents of Lombardy’s Brianza region.
No further details about the climbers were available on Monday morning.
Reaching an elevation of 2,184 metres, Grignetta is a rocky and rugged mountain, whose pinnacles have been a training ground for famous Italian mountaineers such as Riccardo Cassin and Walter Bonatti.
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