A fountain in Florence which has been damaged a number of times over the years was hit again recently by a drunken visitor who told police that she was trying “touch the statue’s private parts as part of a sort of pre-wedding challenge.”
Apparently realizing part-way up a horse’s leg that she was losing traction, she clung to the edge of a frieze, which then gave way. Specialists examining it afterwards noted “minor but significant” damage to hoof and frieze. The woman has been charged with defacing an artistic and architectural monument.
Previous incidents stretch back over centuries. In 2005, a vandal climbed the statue and broke off Neptune’s hand; one of the statues was stolen in 1830; another part was damaged by cannonballs in 1848—and as long ago as 1592, the city had to put a fence around the fountain to keep people from using it as a washbasin.
Image: Francesco Bini/Wikimedia Commons
