The Spanish Steps are scheduled to reopen on September 21, after a year-long restoration financed by jewelry company Bulgari cleaned Rome’s most famous staircase of its ugly stains and repaired its cracked paving stones.
Bulgari chairman Paolo Bulgari has suggested that a fence be installed at the top and bottom of the staircase, to be locked at night in order to prevent people from accessing the steps.
“Restorers found all kinds of things on the steps, from chewing gums to coffee and wine stains, cigarette butts, and I don’t even want to mention the other disgusting traces and residues that had defiled the monument,” Bulgari said. He fears the Spanish Steps will quickly be trashed and damaged again if people are allowed to loll around at night like they did before, leaving cigarette butts, beer cans, bottles of wine, and scratching their initials or, worse still, obscenities, with marker pens. "I am very worried,” Bulgari said. “We spent a lot of money to bring the monument back to its former glory and, if we do not apply strict rules, in a few months it will be back in the hands of ‘barbarians’.”
"We should find a way to shield it at night," Bulgari continued. "It is of course ok to walk down the steps, they were built for that, and the walk down from the Pincio hill is absolutely wonderful. But this is not a place to sit." Many local store owners agree with Bulgari, saying the steps have become a meeting point especially for young foreigners who loll around drinking and smoking, leaving trash behind.
It is certainly outrageous that local administrations did nothing to prevent the kind of damage and disrespect brought upon one of the city’s most beautiful monuments, a Baroque masterpiece that has enchanted travelers for centuries, and was immortalized in the romantic comedy Roman Holiday, starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.
Opinions of course differ on the proposition launched by Bulgari: some agree, saying it is necessary to close off the steps at night or they will quickly be reduced to the same unfortunate state they were in before the restoration; others disagree saying that the staircase is a public space and, as such, it belongs to the citizens and tourists, therefore its access cannot be limited. They argue that people should instead be educated to respecting the monuments. Such for example is the opinion of Claudio Parisi Presicce, Rome’s superintendent of cultural heritage: “We need do to more about preventing damage, starting with educating people,” he said. “Tourists behave badly because they copy what they see Romans doing.”
What do you think? Should the Spanish Steps be fenced off at night, or should they be left open with the risk of damage and trashing?
