Seven activists from the Ultima Generazione group (Last Generation) protested against climate change by climbing into the Trevi fountain in Rome and pouring diluted charcoal into the water to turn it black.
The protesters held up banners saying “We won’t pay for fossil fuels” and shouted, “Our country is dying.”
While uniformed police waded into the water to take away the activists, many tourists filmed the stunt and a few of the onlookers shouted insults at the protesters, as video footage showed.
Ultima Generazione called for an end to public subsidies for fossil fuels and linked the protests to deadly floods in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna in recent days. The group said one in four houses in Italy were at risk from flooding.
The mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, condemned the protest: «Enough of these absurd attacks on our artistic heritage», he wrote on Twitter.