The 27-year-old woman from Turkey was told to clean the bridge and fined €160 for vandalism after attempting to scrawl names on it with her nail polish.

The incident came just a week after a German tourist was told to do the same after his daughter drew stars on the bridge with a felt-tip pen. He was also hit with a €160 fine.

Florentines do not take kindly to tourists debasing their city, the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, with this summer being particularly badly hit by “oafs”, according to an editorial in early September by Luigi Caroppo, the Florence editor of La Nazione newspaper.

The column pointed to a string of slights by tourists this summer, including numerous cases of graffiti as well as an American surgeon snapping the finger off a 600-year-old sculpture of the Madonna at the Cathedral museum.

Don't want to miss a story about Italy? – Then join The Local Italy on Facebook and Twitter.