Tourists Topple 150-Year-Old Italian Fountain Statue While Posing for Social Media Photo

A group of 17 young German tourists is being blamed for the destruction of a 19th-century Italian fountain statue after surveillance footage showed the group toppling the figure while posing for photos.

The statue, called "Domina" is estimated to be around 150 years old and worth $218,000. According to Italian news agency Corriere della Sera, the group of German tourists had rented Villa Aleco, the home of the "Domina" statue.

"Domina was in a way the woman who protected the villa," Bruno Golferini, the manager of Villa Alceo told Reuters. "Sadly, there are these ignorant people who do these kind of things."

Golferini said two of the tourists climbed into the fountain that surrounds the more-than-5-foot-tall statue to hug it when another member of their group pushed the statue with a stick and toppled it over.

Golferini has lodged a complaint against all 17 of the tourists, who have since left Italy. Police are investigating the surveillance footage.

“When we realized it, it was too late,” Golferini told Italian news station TGCOM 24. “The boys did not respect the ban on entering the fountain and were filmed by video surveillance cameras while two of them embraced the statue, dropping it and destroying it, while four of their comrades shot videos with their cell phones.”

He said it would be difficult to repair the statue due to damage to several of the tiles in the fountain.

The Messenger has reached out to the villa’s manager to confirm the identity of the guests and request surveillance video of the incident but has not heard back yet.

Several local officials have posted publicly about the incident, including Italy's Deputy Prime Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Matteo Salvini, who reposted the story on Instagram saying, "Instead of influencers, call them stupids."

Francesca Caruso, the councilor for culture of the Lombardy region, told Corriere della Sera that the group must pay for the damage, "Those who damage the artistic and cultural heritage must pay a steep price."

The incident comes after a series of vandalism incidents across Europe this summer. Since July, at least three tourists have been accused of defacing the Roman Colosseum. In the same month, a Canadian teen was accused of carving his name into a historic Japanese temple.

In 2020, a tourist in Italy similarly broke part of a statue in a museum while posing for a photo.