On March 8, there were 5.883 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Italy and 234 deaths. On that day, the Italian government decided to shut down all museums and outdoor touristic sites in the country and put the entire Lombardy region in lockdown.
At Rome's Scuderie del Quirinale, a long-awaited exhibition celebrating 500 years since the death of Raphael was closed down after only a week. It was expected to run until June 2nd, but now there is no expectation of this reunion of works by the artist being publicly available again.
