Shining a Spotlight on Cultural Properties (Strange) Security

By Scott Briscoe

1 July 2025

Calling all cultural properties security professionals: You can skip this Strange Security, because you deal with these kinds of things all the time making them, well, not strange.

For other security professionals, read on, and be glad you’re not charged with protecting priceless collections (er, and other collections, like wax busts of world leaders).

And here’s our usual disclaimer: Security is serious business and we do not mean to dismiss any suffering (or post-traumatic stress this my cause cultural properties security professionals) the actions in these stories caused.

Number 5 Selfie Gone Bad: A visitor was trying to “make a meme” by taking a selfie at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, in front of a portrait of Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, by Anton Domenico Gabbiani, painted in 1712. The man attempted to strike the same pose as de’ Medici in the painting when he stumbled, falling backward into the painting and damaging it.

Number 4 More Stumbling and Bumbling: Yep, same story different museum and different artwork. The victim this time was a chair displayed at the Palazoo Maffei museum in Verona, Italy, designed by Nicola Bolla, “whose art includes a range of everyday objects studded with Swarovski crystals.” A couple waited for a security guard to leave the room, then the man pretended to sit in the chair while his wife took his photo. He lost his balance, sat in the chair, which could not support his weight and partially collapsed.

Number 3 Do You Want to Ride in My Mercedes-Benz… Down the Spanish Steps? An 80-year-old man drove a Mercedes-Benz A Class down the famous Rome landmark, getting stuck halfway down. The man was not alcohol-impaired and could not explain how he ended up on the steps. A crane was called in to remove the car. The Associated Press helpfully notes that “the Spanish Steps have never been intended for motor vehicles,” though several have tried.

Number 2 Seems Like an Odd Way to Protest: Two individuals entered the Grevin Museum in Paris in regular, touristy clothes, then changed into clothes that impersonated museum personnel, threw a blanket over a life-size wax reproduction of French President Emmanuel Macron, and left the building with the sculpture through an emergency exit. The pair was reportedly from Greenpeace, and they took photos and videos of the wax Macron in front of the Russian embassy in Paris to protest France’s business ties to Russia despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Number 1 Calling Attention to Western Museums’ Appropriation of Treasures from Other Cultures: I get it, I’m with ASIS and I’m supposed to be on the side of cultural properties security professionals charged with protecting museum holdings. But I’m guilty, because I root for the players in a new videogame from Epic Games called Retooled, in which players case facilities then outsmart (and outmuscle) those security professionals and repatriate artwork to the origin countries.