The prankster who poured red dye into the waters of Rome’s landmark Trevi Fountain was at it again on Wednesday when he targeted another of the city’s landmarks — dropping thousands of coloured plastic balls down the Spanish Steps.
Graziano Cecchini said he had released more than 500 000 balls down the Spanish Steps as a demonstrative action to denounce Italy’s current social and political ills.
”It’s an artistic operation which documents through art the problem we have in Italy — the lies that they tell us,” Cecchini, who in October turned the Trevi Fountain red in a similar jest, was quoted as saying in news reports.
Bemused passers-by, including many tourists, watched as municipal street-sweepers tried to collect the balls bouncing down the steps, which derive their informal name from the Piazza di Spagna, or Spain Square, to which they lead.
”At last some colour!” one local Roman watching the scene on a grey winter’s day said. Several tourists kept some of the balls for themselves, presumably as an unusual souvenir from the Italian capital.
”A harmless cultural jest,” is how Rome’s culture superintendent, Silvio di Francia, described Cecchini’s action.
But not everyone was amused. Police detained Cecchini and two alleged accomplices in relation to possible charges of ”disrupting public service”, the Ansa news agency reported. — Sapa-dpa