Respect for the eternal city
ROME – The party starts with a bath in the Fountain of the Four Rivers and ends with a climb on the tail of the dragon sculpted by Bernini in the seventeenth century. It ‘1:23 minutes, Piazza Navona is plunged into darkness, restaurants and bars closed, a homeless man sleeping on the bench farthest. Campo de ‘Fiori comes a group of tourists, beautiful, young, stylish, want to have fun, a baroque masterpiece of marble and water is at hand.
The show is about to begin: via flip flops and jeans jackets, girls plunge into the tub. They laugh, they cry, you pass the plastic cups. Two young girls are posing under the giant marble depicting the river Ganges, another is the star under the running water of the Nile. A unique moment, to be filmed, as unique is the artistic heritage that these tourists are violating, wounding. She did not stop anyone, the square jewel is in their hands.
PASS THE TIME
Have already passed twelve minutes, but there is still one last shot to send to friends, the girl wearing the t-shirt with the words I love Rome climbs on a piece of white travertine, the tourist is this, not the tail of the dragon symbol of one of the monuments of Baroque art.
He laughs, pleased with what he is doing. Exactly as it was in August of ’97, when a man jumped into the fountain of the Four Rivers using that as a springboard sea monster that broke. Imagine that now, as then, the city and hurt those who love it. Last night the party of vandals is over when a guy saw the car of the police approaching. The girls have collected jackets and flip flops and ran away.
THE ART OF INJURY
Fragile and helpless the treasure of this town, churches and fountains in particular, the most vulnerable monuments. Many episodes of vandals who raged with chisels and hammers. Some works were defaced several times, such as the Trevi fountain: the summer of 2012 from the ledge comes off a bay leaf that turns into a thousand pieces. A fragment of eight inches of plaster crumbles from a decoration.
A few weeks before being targeted by thugs is over the fountain of Cupids from the Villa Sciarra, opposite the Casino Barberini. One of the six puttini sandstone, a material similar to the consolidated sand, is found on the ground. In September 2011, the Moor fountain in Piazza Navona becomes the target of a man. The vandal is identified after a few hours because recorded by the cameras. In March, again in 2011, although the spacecraft, the fountain of Celio, has been defaced: the bow of the jail was cut cleanly.
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