Fossil Fuel Activists Stain Rome’s Trevi Fountain Black

Several activists against climate change this Sunday threw a black liquid into the water of the Rome Trevi Fountainone of the symbols of the city, and displayed a banner demanding to stop investing in fossil fuels.

The liquid thrown into the water of this monument is liquid coalthe same one used in other similar actions such as the Barcaccia fountain in the Roman Spanish Steps or that of the Four Rivers by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Piazza Navona.

A dozen young people entered the water of the jewel of the Baroque to warn that “our country is dying” because of the climate crisis and pointed out as one of its consequences the floods in Emilia-Romagna, in northern Italy, which have caused 14 dead and 36,600 displaced.

Police came to the scene to arrest thementering the water to remove them one by one, while the tourists who visited the monument reacted with insults and boos to their action.

The mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieriasked on his social networks to end “these absurd attacks on our artistic heritage” such as the mythical Fontana, which in 2015 saw its restoration and cleaning completed after a year and a half of work.

“Today the Trevi Fountain has been vandalized. Its recovery will be expensive and complex and we hope that there will be no permanent damage. I invite the activists to measure themselves on a debate ground without putting the monuments at risk,” requested the councilor.

The group “last generation” (Last Generation) has claimed responsibility for the action on his Instagram profile and has demanded “to block public subsidies for fossil fuels and pay attention to the climate collapse to which we are headed.”

It is not the first time that these activists have attacked heritage with actions like these. On April 1, black dye was poured into the historic Barcaccia fountain in Rome’s Spanish Steps, built between 1626 and 1629. Earlier, on March 17, two other young people stained the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, the seat of the town hall, with orange paint and were arrested by the mayor himself, Dario Nardella.

Last November they threw soup at a Van Gogh painting from a temporary exhibition in Rome and stained with paint the “The Finger” of Maurizio Cattelan in front of the Milan Stock Exchange, as well as the equestrian sculpture of Vittorio Emanuele II in front of the Duomo or cathedral of that city.

Two activists are on trial in the Vatican Court for damaging the base of this Laocoön sculpture with glue during a protest. The Italian Government has approved a bill that will punish the perpetrators of acts of vandalism against works of art, monuments or heritage with fines of up to 60,000 euros or criminal sanctions.