Graffiti in Rome

There has been graffiti in Rome for more than 2000 years. It's nothing new. You can still see it when you visit the colosseum and even at Pompeii in Naples.

Things move very slowly in Rome and getting permission to change or clean things takes a lot of time and money. They struggle everyday trying to clean the city up after the throngs of tourists that come every day. Adding something else to the list won't be easy.

Donna

Sounds a little silly, but I've actually been impressed with the passion and creativity and color of the graffiti we encounter in Europe (perhaps more of it present in Italy, but it really is all over Europe). Whereas our Chicago neighborhood has graffiti like "Jill loves Joe" and gang-tagging initials and symbols, the European brand seems more political, or about current events or even local history. Sometimes has a sense of humor, too. I realize it's still graffiti, but it reflects a level of social awareness and expression I sometimes worry we lack. Just one observation!

I just think that the Europeans, not just Italians, have a different attitude towards graffiti. They just live with it. In the US, our attitude is to instantly remove as a way to prevent more so we are not accustom to seeing a lot of graffiti which makes it very noticeable to us.

There was an awful a lot graffiti in Germany as well. We called them scribbles. Scribbles all over beautiful monuments and buildings. And not the cool graffiti seen in NYC. Stupid scribbles, not artistic what so ever.

In Chicago graffiti is removed because it's usually gang-related, and not "artistic" whatsoever. I too saw so much trashy graffiti all over Europe, and was saddened by the senseless vandalism that just seemed to go unnoticed. I do get the whole urban hip-hop, tagging scene, but it somehow doesn't translate to seeing "f****" spray-painted on somebody's barn in the German countryside. Art is art, but spray-painting on someone else's property isjust vandalism.

I didn't notice it that much and I think it's because I was prepared for it, i knew it would be there, so when i was there, i didn't really notice it that much.

I,ve been to Munich a couple of times and have never really seen anything like the graffiti in Rome. I was very surprised. Even restaurants had it on their exterior walls.
As a matter of fact I can't say I saw that amount in any European city I ever visited.

We just got back from Italy and I felt that Florence was even worse than Rome. It really bothered me also that people would do that to such old and beautiful buildings. In Sorrento I saw a little girl writing on a building with her dad standing right there!

I wasn't shocked be the graffiti, since I was told how bad it was before I went. My mom asked her tour guide a few years ago, and he explained that graffiti was more of a political statements. I agree with Gio, fairly artistic. When we looked outside our window in Rome, there was a cute cartoon picture on the roll up door to the store across the way. We were looking on mapquest streetview reminiscing about our trip and saw the cartoon person. Gave us a good laugh knowing Luigi was still there. At least we didn't see any male appendages drawn on walls like they like to do here in US.

I live in Rome, and after being asked about this by dozens of tourists, I wrote a blog post about it. You can read my take on why there's so much graffiti in Rome here.

Amanda,
Interesting article. Thanks for posting.
Bob