An English tourist who was filmed carving a note into the Colosseum in Rome has penned a letter apologizing for defacing the nearly 2,000-year-old amphitheater, claiming that he was unaware that the world-famous landmark was ancient.
The letter addressed to Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri was published Wednesday in Il Messaggero, an Italian newspaper based in Rome. In the letter, the man, identified by his lawyer as 27-year-old Ivan Danailov Dimitrov, wrote: “I admit with deepest embarrassment that it was only after what regrettably happened that I learned of the antiquity of the monument.”
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Dimitrov, who faces potential prison time and a hefty fine, went on to say that he is “aware of the gravity of the act committed” while extending “my heartfelt apologies to the Italians and to the whole world for the damage done to an asset that is, in fact, the heritage of all humanity.”
Completed by Roman Emperor Titus in 80 AD., the Colosseum became famous for the gladiators who would engage in combat, often to the death, for the amusement of tens of thousands of spectators.
Dimitrov was the man seen using a key to etch “Ivan+Haley 23” — his name and the name of his significant other — into an internal wall of the monument in video originally shared to YouTube. Recorded by an outraged onlooker, the video of the the stunt, titled “(Expletive) tourist carves name in Colosseum in Rome,” was uploaded on June 23 to YouTube before being widely shared across social media, eliciting condemnation.
The video also alerted police to the vandalism, and Italian officials soon vowed to find and punish the man responsible.
“I consider it very serious, unworthy and a sign of great incivility that a tourist defaces one of the most famous places in the world, a historical heritage (site) such as the Colosseum, to carve the name of his fiancée,” the country’s culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, tweeted on June 26, along with a video of the incident as it first went viral.
A five-day search led Italian police to Dimitrov, who they traced to his home in Britain, according to The Associated Press. Vandalizing the Colosseum is an act that carries fines up up to $15,000 and five years in prison, the agency reported.
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However, Dimitrov’s lawyer, Alexandro Maria Tirelli, told Il Messaggero he is hoping for leniency as he sought to downplay the defacement.
“The boy is the prototype of the foreigner who frivolously believes that anything is allowed in Italy,” Tirelli told Il Messaggero, “even the type of act which in their own countries would be severely punished.”
Includes information from the Associated Press.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @EricLagatta.
