“After his arrest, he was mortified,” a local police source told The Telegraph. “He said he wanted to leave something of himself there. He apologised for what he did but he will have to pay.”
Located south-east of Naples, Pompeii was buried in the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
It is one of Italy’s most popular tourist sites and attracts about four million visitors a year. The House of the Vestals was once an imposing luxury villa famous for its water features in the Roman era.
Earlier this year, the Italian parliament approved tough new fines, ranging from €15,000 to €60,000 (NZ$27,000 to $109,000) for anyone found guilty of causing damage to a site of historical, cultural or artistic interest.
But the risk of a hefty fine does not appear to be deterring tourists from leaving their mark on Italy’s ancient monuments, especially during peak season.
In June, a tourist from Kazakhstan was caught carving the letters “ALI” on the plaster of Pompeii’s House of Ceii, while a Dutch tourist was cited for drawing graffiti on the walls of an ancient Roman villa in the archaeological ruins of Herculaneum near Naples.
Last summer, a young woman was also caught carving a heart into a column of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa, which dates back to the 12th century.
“Unfortunately, even today we find ourselves commenting on an uncivil and idiotic defacement inflicted on our artistic and cultural heritage,” Gennaro Sangiuliano, Italy’s minister of culture, said at the time.
A Bulgarian national living in Bristol, last year, provoked outrage after he was filmed carving names into an inner wall at the Colosseum in Rome.
Ivan Dimitrov, who claimed he was unaware of the antiquity of the 2000-year-old amphitheatre, was fined and faces a possible prison sentence of two to five years.
