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.

The Moor Fountain, by 16th century artist Giacomo della Porta, is on the square’s south end. Bernini added the central figure in the 1600s.