Last weekend in Florence, Italy, a young woman was caught on camera h*mping, gr!nding, and k!ssing against a statue of Bacchus, the god of wine and sexuality. After images of the incident went viral on social media, the country’s culture ministry and Florence officials expressed their outrage, with the mayor’s office in Florence referring to it as an act that “mimicked s3x.”
Florence City Hall stated that the visitor was “probably in a condition of intoxication” and that she had not yet been identified. According to a rule that forbids any kind of misuse of the nation’s cultural heritage, they threatened to identify her and penalise her in addition to potentially losing her right to live in the city.
The statue is a copy of the original, which was made in the sixteenth century by the Florentine sculptor Giambologna, who was influenced by Michelangelo’s and Hellenistic sculpture. Giambologna arrived in Florence in 1552. His original Bacchus is preserved at Florence’s Bargello Museum. On a corner close to the Ponte Vecchio Bridge, the replica is seen.
