Vita gazette – Italian climate activists poured the black liquid into the waters of Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome’s central Piazza Navona on Saturday afternoon.

The new environmental raid by the Last Generation group in Rome. Three activists immersed themselves in the Fountain of the Four Rivers basin, the work of the artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, after having coloured the water black. The demonstrators displayed flags with the slogan “We don’t pay for fossils” before being stopped by the police. This is the third blitz since the beginning of the year for Ultima Generazione. Last April 1, in fact, the environmental group had targeted the Barcaccia in Piazza di Spagna; on 2 January instead, it was the turn of the facade of Palazzo Madama to be daubed with spray paint.

The protesters were met with insults and whistles from Roman onlookers and tourists before being dragged out of the 17th-century fountain and taken away by police.

The city’s mayor Roberto Gualtieri on Twitter slammed the stunt as “another senseless gesture defacing the monuments of Rome”, adding: “It is not by putting the artistic heritage at risk that the environment is saved!”

The mayor ordered the fountain to be cleaned immediately, and specialist technicians were checking for any permanent damage to the monument, designed by Bernini in 1651.