Outrage in Florence after 'insulting' female tourist simulates sex with treasured statue of Bacchus as officials demand harsh crackdown on disrespectful holidaymakers

Residents in Florence have been left outraged after a female tourist simulated sex with a treasure statue of Bacchus.

The blonde tourist, whose nationality is not yet known, climbed on a treasured statue of Giambologna's Bacchus in the Borgo San Jacopo area of Florence and pretend to kiss the man made of bronze.

The smiling woman, wearing denim shorts and a black t-shirt, also stood in front of the sculpture while grinding her read to it while her friend snapped photos.

The second woman, who wore black shorts and a white t-shirt, was pictured kneeling in front of the statue, seemingly imitating a sexual act.

Now officials have demanded a harsh crackdown on disrespectful holidaymakers like the women pictured with the bronze Bacchus.

'Florence is a city that does not make visitors respect it. These continuous manifestations of rudeness and incivility occur because everyone feels entitled to do what they want with impunity,' Patrizia Asproni from Confcultura, a cultural heritage organisation, said.  

She urged: 'We need to apply the "Singapore model": tight controls, very high fines, zero tolerance.'

Police chief Antonella Ranaldi said: 'Tourists are welcome, but there must be respect for our monuments, whether they are originals or copies. Also because I doubt that this lady, who has my blame, knows the difference.' 

Marco Passeri, a former councillor for Florence, asked: 'Are we sure we need this kind of tourists in Florence?' 

An outraged resident had posted images of the tourists on a local Facebook group, writing: 'Here is the respect for Florence,' as she criticised tourism in the Italian city. 

For the image of one of the tourists kneeling in front of the statue, she added an emoji on top, seemingly to hide the sexual act the woman was imitating.  

The footage quickly went viral in Italy, with one resident writing online: 'We should force tourists to take a test on Florence before they can set foot in the city.'

Others have called for the female tourists to go to prison over the 'sexual' photoshoot with the statue.

The statue the woman was pictured with is a replica of the original bronze Bacchus, which was created by Giambologna in the 1560s and is kept at the Bargello Museum. 

It was replaced by the replica in 2006 and stands on top of an original ancient marble fountain called 'del Centauro', which the tourists had to scale to reach the statue.

This comes after similar incidents with tourists causing outrage in Italy after disrespecting monuments. Just last month, a tourist was caught carving his name on an ancient wall in Pompeii.

The man, who is from Kazakhstan, was reportedly caught red-handed damaging one of the walls in the town, which sits beneath Mt Vesuvius and was buried by the volcano's 79AD eruption.

The unnamed vandal was stopped while he was engraving 'Ali' on light plaster in the House of the Ceii, an ancient villa that probably belonged to the magistrate Lucius Ceius Secundus.

The Italian authorities have said that the man will be made to pay for restoration work to be carried out on the wall to remove the graffiti after he was reported to the police.

The park director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, said: 'An uncivilised act. Thanks to the new law supported by Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano, the perpetrator of the crime will have to pay for the restoration of the wall.

'Well done to the ministry collaborators and the Ales company who promptly intervened. Excellent collaboration with the police, who we thank for their promptness.'

The Pompeii Archaeological Park says on its website that the House of the Ceii is 'one of the rare examples of ancient dwellings in the late-Samnite period (2nd century BC).'

They also say: 'Upon entering the house one notices the impluvium bath which is made of fragments of amphorae set on edge, a common technique used in Greece and attested in Pompeii also in the House of the Ancient Hunt.

'The back wall in the small garden is decorated with wild animals, a highly successful theme in the decoration of open areas.

'The side walls depict Egyptian-style landscapes with animals of the Nile Delta, which probably indicated a link between the owner of the house and the cult of Isis, widespread in Pompeii in the last years of the life of the city.'

As high season approaches, Italian authorities will be policing the country's landmarks after last summer saw a series of senseless attacks on Italy's beloved historical sites. 

In the town of Herculaneum, which was also covered in volcanic ash when Vesuvius erupted in 79AD, a tourist from the Netherlands was reprimanded for 'signing' an ancient wall.

Then in August, two tourists from Germany were detained for covering a historical landmark in Florence with football graffiti.

The men are reported to have used black spray paint to write 'DKS 1860' on the 460-year-old columns of Florence's iconic Vasari Corridor.

The corridor connects the city's treasured Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace and was originally built for the powerful Medici family.

And in a now-famous shocking incident, a Bulgarian-born Bristol-based fitness instructor was filmed smiling as he vandalised the wall of the Colosseum.

Ivan Dimitrov, 27, was on holiday in Rome with girlfriend Hayley Bracey, 33, when he was caught carving the words 'Ivan and Hayley 23' into the brickwork with a set of keys.