Every year, visitors to Rome’s famed Trevi Fountain toss in more than $1.7 million in coins. Historically, the Catholic charity Caritas has taken that money to help poor people. Now though, Rome mayor Virginia Raggi wants the cash for repairs to the city’s infrastructure. From the BBC News:
We did not foresee this outcome,” Caritas director Father Benoni Ambarus told Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference. “I still hope it will not be final.”The newspaper ran a scathing article on the move in its Saturday edition, headlined “Money taken from the poorest”.
City councillors have approved the change and it is due to take place in April.
Above, the classic Trevi Fountain scene from Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), featuring Anita Ekberg.