Police examine after well-known Rome statue has tusk snapped off at the hours of darkness | EUROtoday

A celebrated marble elephant sculpture by Baroque grasp Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Rome has been broken, with its left tusk discovered snapped off on the monument’s base.

Authorities reported the incident on Monday evening, prompting police to evaluate CCTV footage from Piazza della Minerva. Investigators are working to find out whether or not the injury was an act of vandalism or if the tusk merely fell off following weeks of unusually heavy rainfall.

Italy’s Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli made clear he thought it was deliberate, saying the seventeenth statue, which helps an historic Egyptian obelisk, was sufferer of an “absurd act of barbarity”.

“It is unacceptable that once again the nation’s artistic and cultural heritage must suffer such serious damage,” he stated in an announcement.

It will not be the primary time the sculpture, popularly generally known as the Elefantino (little elephant), has been broken.

In November 2016, the tip of the identical tusk was equally discovered damaged off. The piece was reattached throughout restoration work.

open picture in gallery

The sculpture, created in 1667 by Ercole Ferrata based mostly on a design by Bernini, stands a brief distance from the Pantheon, certainly one of most visited vacationer websites in Rome.

Earlier this month it was introduced that Rome would introduce prices for vacationers hoping to get near the Trevi Fountain. The €2 price is available in as town of Rome works to manage crowds at one of many world’s most celebrated websites.

The vacationer price was rolled out with a brand new €5 (£4.30) vacationer ticket price for some metropolis museums. In each circumstances, Rome residents are exempt from the charges and the additional income will really broaden the variety of city-run museums which might be free for registered Roman residents.

It’s all a part of the Eternal City’s efforts to handle vacationer flows in a very congested a part of city, enhance the expertise and offset the upkeep prices of preserving all of Rome’s cultural heritage. Officials estimate it might web town €6.5m (£5.6m) additional a yr.

The metropolis determined to impose the Trevi Fountain price after seeing optimistic outcomes already from a year-long experiment to stagger and restrict the variety of guests who can attain the entrance fringe of the basin by imposing traces and pathways for entrance and exit.