Dirty visitors: a tourist defecates on the stairs of Brunelleschi's dome

Coming on vacation to Florence and outraging a sacred place of Christianity and a jewel of architecture of all time: that’s what happened the day before yesterday, as reported by the website of the Florentine edition of La Repubblica, when a British tourist climbing the path to the top of the Dome of Florence Cathedral, Brunelleschi’s masterpiece, stopped to perform her bodily needs. And after defecating, she started up the stairs again. Staff from the cleaning company working for the Opera del Duomo had to intervene to clean it up. News of great barbarity aggravated by the fact that on the day of the patron saint, June 24 (St. John’s Day) a similar incident happened at the end of the path, before going outside the dome.

We are beyond the rudeness of the many episodes that can happen: if a work of art does not generate respect in those who are looking at it, it is then useless to even make it available to them. Of course it is not a question of the price of admission ticket or not, incivility does not correlate with wallet, and art must be for everyone to contribute to the progress and development of man and society. But in front of those who travel many hours to visit Florence and climb up a dome famous throughout the world for the peculiarity with which it was built and instead of admiring it use it as a latrine (or to write futile love phrases) one wonders what they came there for, what conscience there is to visit places of art and history on vacation.

Photo: Ilya Orehov

Dirty visitors: a tourist defecates on the stairs of Brunelleschi's dome

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.