Taking a selfie with a favourite artwork has become a familiar ritual for many museum-goers. But at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, one such moment took an unfortunate turn when a tourist, attempting to imitate a pose in a portrait, stumbled and tore a 300-year-old painting. 

Widely circulating security footage shows the visitor standing just inches from Portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici – a late 17th-century work by Baroque artist Anton Domenico Gabbiani. The subject of the painting, Ferdinando, was the Grand Prince of Tuscany and heir to the Medici dynasty – though he died before ever taking the throne, just one generation before the family’s rule came to an end. As the tourist tried to mimic the prince’s pose, he lost his balance and fell backward into the painting, leaving a hole near the figure’s right boot.

The individual has been identified and may face criminal charges as well as the cost of restoration. The painting has been removed for conservation, and the special exhibition in which it was displayed – Florence and Europe: Arts of the Eighteenth Century – was temporarily suspended. It is set to reopen on 2 July and run through 28 November.

While the mishap has reignited debate over museum etiquette, it has also reopened a window onto the twilight of the Medici – an influential family behind the Italian Renaissance.

Home to Renaissance masterpieces like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation, the Uffizi Gallery is not only one of the world’s most important art museums but also a historic monument in its own right. Built in the late Renaissance and opened to the public in 1769, it’s often considered one of the first modern museums in the world.

The building dates back to 1560, when Cosimo I de’ Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, commissioned it as a government office complex – the name Uffizi literally means “offices” in Italian.

While the lower floors served as the city’s bureaucratic hub, consolidating administrative control of various committees, agencies, and guilds under one roof, the upper levels were set aside for something else entirely: displaying the Medici family’s vast art collection – assembled over centuries by a dynasty that ruled Florence, banked the popes, and shaped the arts and culture of Renaissance Europe.

The Medici didn’t start as royals. Their rise began in the late 14th century with Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, a banker with a sharp mind and good timing. After taking over his uncle’s business in Florence, Giovanni expanded the Medici Bank across Italy.

His big break came when he backed an unlikely candidate for pope – Baldassare Cossa – with 10,000 gold florins. Against the odds, Cossa won the papacy in 1410 and became Pope John XXIII. In return, he handed the Vatican’s finances to the Medici. 

The bank flourished – and so did the family’s power. Money-making, however, came with moral risk. Lending at interest was considered sinful under church doctrine, and Giovanni, despite his success, feared for his soul. Like many Florentine elites, he began giving back: funding churches, restoring chapels, and supporting artists – acts of piety that also happened to reinforce the family’s status. 

That tradition continued for generations, and among the artists the family supported were Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Botticelli – masters who helped define the High Renaissance and shape the course of Western art.

By the early 18th century, when Ferdinando de’ Medici sat for his portrait with Gabbiani, the golden age of the Medici family was beginning to fade.

Born in 1663, Ferdinando was the eldest son of Cosimo III and heir to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He held the title of Grand Prince but never ascended the throne, dying in 1713 before his father. The title passed instead to his brother, Gian Gastone, whose short and troubled reign marked the final chapter of Medici rule. When he died without an heir in 1737, the duchy was seized by Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, bringing an end to nearly three centuries of Medici power. 

Though his life was cut short, Ferdinando, like many of his ancestors, left a lasting mark on the arts. A devoted patron, he supported composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti and appointed Bartolomeo Cristofori – credited with inventing the piano – as his instrument curator.

At his villa in Pratolino, just outside Florence, Ferdinando indulged his passion for collecting paintings and antique furnishings, and for promoting contemporary artists and musicians. He built a celebrated indoor theater and hosted operas and chamber concerts, entertaining a circle of scholars, musicians, and painters.

Ferdinando’s taste leaned toward bold color and expressive brushwork – qualities he encouraged in the artists he supported. He remained loyal to Anton Domenico Gabbiani, a painter trained under the Medici court artist Justus Sustermans and educated at a Medici-funded academy.

After refining his style during brief periods in Rome and Venice – where he developed a richer handling of color – Gabbiani returned to Florence and became a court artist under Ferdinando’s patronage. He painted portraits of the prince and his circle, but his masterpiece is widely considered to be the ceiling frescoes in the Sala Meridiana of the Palazzina Meridiana, adjacent to the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens.

In today’s auction world, Gabbiani remains a relatively rare name. Over the past two decades, only a handful of his works have come to market. His auction record was set in 2002 with Portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici with his brother Gian Gastone, which sold at Tajan in Paris for €109,250. A more recent result came in 2022, when his religious painting The Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine of Siena sold at Sotheby’s New York for US$11,970.