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TOURISM

‘Selfies and ignorance’: Italy’s Colosseum director slams badly-behaved tourists

A spate of incidents of vandalism at Rome's Colosseum has prompted the site's director to criticise tourists who “lack knowledge” about the site and are more interested in “taking selfies”.

Published: 17 July 2023 17:17 CEST
'Selfies and ignorance': Italy's Colosseum director slams badly-behaved tourists
Rome's Colosseum has seen an increasing number of reports of vandalism and defacement by tourists in recent years. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)

The Colosseum archaeological park’s director Alfonsina Russo said on Monday that such acts of vandalism at the site were caused by “ignorance”.

READ ALSO: Anger in Italy as another tourist caught carving initials into Rome’s Colosseum

“There is a lack of civic education about heritage. There is a lack of a priori knowledge of what people are visiting,” Russo said in an interview with newspaper Il Messaggero on Monday.

“We have signs everywhere [detailing the laws against vandalism], on the website and on site, but only a minority read them,” she said.

“The will of the tourist-vandal is to leave their own mark, because we are by now a society oriented towards ourselves

“See the 25,000 tourists who visit the Colosseum every day who are primarily interested in taking selfies,” she said.

A 17-year-old German tourist was the latest to be reported for allegedly damaging brickwork at the site on Saturday by scratching the walls, just one day after a 17-year-old Swiss visitor was caught on camera doing the same.

Less than a month earlier, a 27-year-old Bulgarian fitness instructor had sparked outrage across Italy by carving “Ivan+Hayley 23” into an inner wall at the Unesco Heritage Site.

He later admitted in a letter of apology to Rome’s mayor that he had not been aware of “the antiquity of the monument”.

In the last six years, the number of people charged with ‘defacement of cultural heritage’ has increased steadily, though many more cases likely went undetected, reported Il Messaggero.

Anyone found guilty of causing damage to a site of historical and artistic interest in Italy can face a fine of up to €15,000 and even a prison sentence of up to five years.

Russo noted that parliament was set to give the green light to a new draft law making these penalties harsher.

Ministers in April gave preliminary approval to plans to increase the maximum fine for defacing cultural property to €40,000, while anyone damaging or destroying monuments could be fined up to €60,000, with possible prison terms of up to seven years.

Member comments

  1. i’d love to see these vandals get hit with heavy fines.. they seem to only get a slap on the wrist.. one person fined €15,000 would surely make a big difference in terms of reducing potential for future vandalism..

  2. It’s not a “lack of prior knowledge”, it is purely arrogance, a don’t take care attitude and a mindless shot for insta and likes. These morons who deface monuments should be fined heavily, then kicked out of the country. Only heavy fines and loss of their tourist money with being shown the exit is going to deter these idiots.

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ROME

Vatican updates guidelines on miracles to avoid ‘confusion among the faithful’

The Vatican updated its rules for supernatural events on Friday, such as visions of Christ or the Virgin Mary, including the acknowledgement that overactive imaginations and outright "lying" risked harming the faithful.

Published: 17 May 2024 16:59 CEST
Vatican updates guidelines on miracles to avoid 'confusion among the faithful'

The new norms, published by the Holy See’s powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope Francis, allow for a more “prudent” interpretation of events that generally avoids declaring them outright a supernatural event.

“In certain circumstances not everything is black or white,” Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, who leads the dicastery, said at a press conference.

“Sometimes a possible divine reaction mixes with… human thoughts and fantasies,” Fernandez added.

The history of the Catholic Church is filled with episodes of strange or unexplained phenomena involving religious statues or other objects, whether in Italy or beyond.

The new guidelines come two months after the Church said that a series of widely reported miracles attributed to a statuette of the Virgin Mary – including making a pizza grow in size – were false.

The rules, which represent the first update since 1978, provide more guidance to bishops who until now have been left relatively free to determine the authenticity of such visions on a case-by-case basis.

Underscoring the complexity of the issue, only six cases of such alleged supernatural events have been “officially resolved” by the Vatican since 1950, with one taking “seventy excruciating years”, the document said.

“Today, we have come to the conviction that such complicated situations, which create confusion among the faithful, should always be avoided,” wrote Fernandez in the document.

Argentinian cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez speaks to the press on February 12, 2024. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)

The new rules call for more collaboration between the individual dioceses and the Vatican regarding such events. Bishops’ final decisions will be submitted to the dicastery for approval.

That is crucial because “sometimes the discernment may also deal with problems, such as delicts (civil offences), manipulation, damage to the unity of the Church, undue financial gain, and serious doctrinal errors that could cause scandals and undermine the credibility of the Church,” said the document.

They include believers “misled by an event attributed to a divine initiative but is merely the product of someone’s imagination” or those who have an “inclination toward lying”.

In the absence of problems, dioceses will be able to declare a “Nihil Obstat”, indicating there is nothing in the phenomenon contrary to faith and morals.

That falls short of an official declaration of its supernatural authenticity, which is generally to be avoided under the new rules unless the pope authorises it.

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