Italy protects cultural heritage with modern technology

For decades, tourists have been defacing walls and other cultural heritage with expressions of eternal love, spontaneous emotions, and silly comments. It’s easy to read sentences like: “I hate stairs,” or “Cate, I want to marry you.” To combat the destruction of cultural heritage, Florence officials have begun using a new and quite effective tool: digital solutions.

“No writing on the walls” – this message is read on the Renaissance stone wall inside the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral located in Piazza San Giovanni – the religious center of the central Italian city of Florence. Piazza San Giovanni is famous for three ancient monuments: the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, the Giottos Campanile bell tower and the Baptistery.

However, this request has clearly not been respected by tourists. Most recently, on February 28, 2016, a tourist couple “Jackie + Denise” from the eastern state of New Jersey in the United States wanted to make sure the whole world knew they had visited the Giotte Campanile bell tower designed by Giotto di Bondone - one of the pioneering artists of the Renaissance period. The couple decided to write their names in a dark red pencil on the 18th century bronze bell.

Visitors leave their messages on tablets.

For years, Florence city officials have tried to stop tourists from all over the world from using the ancient stone walls as “paper” to express their personal feelings, but to no avail. Florence city officials have decided to go digital to solve the problem that has been plaguing the city for years.

Start at the Giottos Campanile. After cleaning the walls along the steps leading up to the bell tower in early 2016, city officials placed three tablets in the area, hoping that visitors would use them to jot down their feelings without damaging the ancient monument. The messages visitors leave will be stored forever on a website, while any new markings on the walls will be immediately erased.

In addition, a warning sign is placed at the entrance of the bell tower in both English and Italian. “We need some kind of deterrent against graffiti,” said Alice Filipponi, social media strategist for the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, the institute that oversees Florence’s Duomo heritage complex. “Once all the walls are washed, we hope that the digital application on the tablet will help. Our goal is to give visitors the freedom to leave their mark without dirtying the walls.”

Beatrice Agostini (the architect of the Institute responsible for the management and maintenance of the monument) and her team of nine people spent three months cleaning the walls using solvent gels and lasers. “We want to tell people that a trace is not only an eyesore but also a cultural relic. The task of removing the inscriptions on the wall is not easy. Because there are traces that cannot be removed on the marble surface,” said Beatrice Agostini.

In the first three days of testing the tablet app, Alice Filipponi and Beatrice Agostini recorded more than 3,000 visitors leaving 304 digital messages on the device, and no new traces appeared on the wall. With the “virtual traces,” visitors can choose the background for the text – be it wood or marble, iron or plaster – similar to the structure of the monument.

Visitors can also choose the medium they use to write in – lipstick or spray paint – as well as the symbols they want to use. They are also asked to leave their email address so that, once their message is accepted, they can see their written sentiments appear on the website. In the coming years, visitors’ messages will be printed and stored on paper in the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore’s archives, which date back to 1296.

“We still don’t know if such an educational approach will work,” explains Franco Lucchesti, President of the Institute. “But the current situation shows that our website is full of messages from visitors while the walls remain clean. So we can trust that the digital solution is powerful.”

“I hope it works,” said Giorgio Moretti, president of Angels of Beauty, a group that has been cleaning Florence’s city walls for years. “Every initiative is important, and this is a very creative project.”

Giottos Campanile bell tower seen from above.

In Italy today, defacing ancient cultural monuments is punishable by fines or even prison sentences, depending on the severity of the damage. In Florence, the battle to protect monuments has been brewing for decades, but has become increasingly intense in recent years. Some foreign tour groups have become aware of their defacing. For example, Franco Lucchesi recalled how three years ago the Japanese apologized after a group of their students damaged a monument by defacing it.

“Actually, it helps that the monuments are so clean,” said Laura Bachmann, a German tourist who visited Florence with a friend. “Because no one dares to be the first to dirty it.” For experts, the cleanliness of monuments also acts as a deterrent to visitors.

But Andrea Amato, president of Italy's National Anti-Graffiti Association, commented on the efforts of Florence city authorities: "I am worried that the tablets will not prevent repeat offenses. The surveillance cameras will not prevent graffiti. But psychologically, if we clean the monument, people will be less likely to dirty it again."

According to World Security