Pests have sacked Italy again this year.
Two German tourists spray-painted slogans for the Munich soccer team on the side of a 460-year-old landmark in Florence, police said — in the latest incident in which foreign troublemakers have vandalized Italy’s cultural treasures.
The exterior of the stunning riverside Vasari Corridor – which links to the city’s famous Uffizi Gallery – suffered $10,800 worth of damage from a graffiti attack, Italy’s Carabinieri military police said.
Police soon identified the perpetrators as among a group of 11 students staying at a local Airbnb — and took the vandalism so seriously that they raided the location and found two cans of black spray paint and paint-stained clothing. Two of the tourists were arrested.
Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano demanded swift and immediate punishment for the trespassers amid a growing wave of tourists damaging the country’s historic architecture.
“Action like this cannot be allowed to go unpunished,” Sangiuliano said in a statement. “Now, let justice take its course.”
The 460-year-old Vasari Corridor has been spray-painted with a reference to a Munich football club. ZUMAPRESS.com
Officials estimate the damage at $10,800, with the graffiti among the latest in a series of tourist vandalism.ZUMAPRESS.com
Uffizi director Eike Schmidt voiced the need to crack down on the vandalism, claiming that the use of spray paint was a step beyond previous incidents involving engraving words on stone using keys.
“Clearly this was not drunken will, but a premeditated act,” Schmidt said in a statement. “Enough with symbolic punishment and circumstances that lighten the imagination. We need the hard fist of the law.”
Under Italian law, acts of vandalism can be convicted under “grave damage,” which carries a maximum sentence of three years.
Police have yet to say which of the 11 tourists have been identified as vandals and formally charged with a crime.
A stunning riverside walkway connects to the famous Uffizi Gallery, in Florence.REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The destruction of the Vasari Corridor happened after two tourists were caught carving their names into the iconic Roman Colosseum.
In July, a 17-year-old Swiss girl was filmed carving the letter “N” into one of the landmark’s walls, just a month after Ivan Dimitrov, a 27-year-old Bulgarian-born fitness trainer, was caught carving his fiancée’s name into the monument.
Dimitrov drew ridicule online after he offered a bizarre apology in which he claimed he did not know how old the Colosseum, completed by Emperor Titus in 80 AD, was when he committed the act.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
