Italian Government Halts Sales of NFTs Based on Masterpieces from the Country’s Museums

The Italian government has put a hold on the sale of NFTs based on classic Italian Renaissance paintings, the Art Newspaper reports.

“Given that the matter is complex and unregulated, the ministry has temporarily asked its institutions to refrain from signing contracts relating to NFTs,” a spokesperson for Massimo Osanna, the director general of museums in Italy, told the Art Newspaper. “The basic intention is to avoid unfair contracts.”

The decision comes after the Uffizi Galleries made a paltry profit from the sale of a Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo (1505–06) NFT.

The Uffizi Galleries and three other Italian museums entered into a five-year contract with an NFT production company called Cinello, one of several start-ups that is attempting to carve out a niche in providing digital ownership services for museums and cultural institutions. Cinello has made NFTs of works such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Portrait of a Musician (1490) and Amedeo Modigliani’s Head of a Young Lady (1915).