Man caught on camera knocking chunks off famed Rome fountain

ITALIAN police say a man has vandalised a fountain in Rome’s famed Piazza Navona, detaching two big chunks off a marble statue.

The damaged statue was a 19th-century copy. A Rome culture official, Umberto Broccoli, said the pieces were recovered and can be reattached to the Moor Fountain.

Security camera footage on Italian TV stations and websites yesterday showed a man climbing into the fountain and repeatedly attacking the statue — one of four large faces at the edge of the fountain — with a large rock. The man acted on Saturday morning, when the favourite tourist spot was still relatively quiet.