For the past two weeks, Venice has been attacked by tourist barbarians who paint damage to cultural sites and bathe naked in canals.
Crimes
According to CNN, on the night of May 15-16, the facade of the Redentore Church, designed by Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio and the site of the city’s most famous festival, was vandalized. Part of the façade, built of white Istrian stone belonging to the Venetian Empire, was plastered in pink, and something resembling an equation was scratched on top of it.
The three-square-meter square is below the statue of St. Francis of Assisi, to the right of the entrance, as tourists climb the famous white stone stairs. According to the publication, a resident who tried to clean it caused additional damage by using water, which helped the color to penetrate deeper into the porous stone. Currently, state art restorers are repairing the damage.
Earlier, vandals desecrated another church in Venice, Sant’Antonio, by smearing graffiti on its walls. Meanwhile, another “artist” poured bright blue paint on the bridge at the Fondamenti di Garzotti, one of the main streets leading to the city from the train station. Some have considered the word “freedom” in this “oil”.
And on Thursday night, two American tourists decided to undress and dive naked into a canal in the residential area of Castello. Affected locals watched as they swam in the water into which neighboring houses poured their sewage. Then they got out, wiped themselves with a towel, and set off in an unknown direction.
Punishment
Surveillance cameras have helped solve only a few problems. Authorities have searched for a tourist responsible for the vandalism at Redentori Church. It turned out that he had two accomplices. According to the city council, they were part of a street art event held earlier that day. Authorities scoured social media to find out who might be to blame and found a street artist whose signature work was to create equation-style drawings.
The mayor of the tour city, Luigi Bruniaro, called what is happening a “scar” on the city’s art. According to him, the guilty should be punished. At the same time, he called for more powers for justices of peace.
Posting a photo of the damage to the Rio Marin Bridge on Twitter, he added: “It will take hours to restore, the cost of which we can not yet calculate. We have to keep these barbarians in the cell for at least a couple of nights.” After another incident with the destruction of a religious statue in Marguerite, the head also wrote: “Enough of this chaos. The city should be respected.”