mail: Bill Thayer

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Needless Waste:
The Assisted Ruin of Our Cultural Heritage

Spello: the Chiesa Tonda. (For now, see my diary entry)

This is one website I wish were smaller. Unfortunately, as I go thru my notes and photographs, it will get bigger like the others.

A lot of fuss, quite properly, is made over the great monuments. Now that doesn't seem to prevent the French cathedral of Amiens from being covered with spray-painted graffiti, and two‑meter-tall ailanthus from growing in the roof of the cathedral of Laon, but those examples are fairly minor. This site documents some of the worst cases I've seen.

Small churches, especially in the countryside, often have no one to take care of them, and wind up particularly exposed to the depredations of vandals and art thieves. The urban example below is in Rome; the rural examples all happen to be in Umbria, because I know well that region of central Italy, but ill manners and rapacity know no borders: in many places the situation is worse.

Images with borders lead to more information. The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)
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