Italy is considering a bill that would charge fines up to €60,000 for damaging monuments and other cultural sites, more closely matching the actual costs of repairing some of the damage. Fines in the bill, approved by the cabinet, would start at €10,000.
Culture Minister Gennaro Sanguiliano, who sponsored the legislation, pointed to a recent €40,000 cost to clean the facade of Palazzo Madama (above), a vandalized Unesco Heritage site in Turin, as well as a spate of incidents of damage by tourists and protesters.
In the past, fines have been much lower; last June an American woman who hurled an e-scooter down Rome’s Spanish Steps, causing $26,000 in damage to the newly-refurbished marble steps. She was fined the equivalent of $400 and banned for life.
