A person seen on video final month utilizing his keys to etch his love for his girlfriend on a wall within the Colosseum in Rome has written a letter of apology, saying he had no concept the practically 2,000-year-old monument was so historic.

“I admit with deepest embarrassment that it was only after what regrettably happened that I learned of the monument’s antiquity,” the person — recognized by his lawyer as 31-year-old Ivan Danailov Dimitrov — wrote in a letter dated July 4 and addressed to the Rome prosecutor’s workplace, the mayor of Rome and “the municipality of Rome.”

Portions of the letter had been first published on Wednesday within the Rome day by day newspaper Il Messaggero.

In it, Mr. Dimitrov acknowledged the “seriousness of the deed I committed,” and supplied his “heartfelt and sincere apologies to Italians and the entire world for the damage done to a monument, which is, in fact, heritage of all humanity.” Mr. Dimitrov supplied to “sincerely and concretely” proper his incorrect and redeem himself.

The carving came to light final month after a fellow vacationer in Rome filmed a person scratching “Ivan + Hayley 23/6/23” right into a brick on a wall of the Colosseum. The video went viral, and “Ivan,” whose id was then not identified, was broadly rebuked for his devil-may-care angle. Admonished — with an expletive — by the video-taker, Mr. Dimitrov carried on.

The brick that was defaced was truly a part of a wall constructed throughout a mid-Nineteenth century restoration of the monument, which was inaugurated within the first century A.D. But that made little distinction to Colosseum authorities who mentioned that it didn’t change the truth that the act was vandalism.

Mr. Dimitrov was ultimately recognized by Italian navy cops who crosschecked the 2 lovers’ names with registered visitors in Rome and located they’d stayed in an Airbnb rental within the Cinecittà neighborhood. Roberto Martina, the police commander who oversaw the operation, mentioned they tracked Mr. Dimitrov to England, the place he and his girlfriend, who will not be below investigation, stay.

Italy isn’t any stranger to unruly guests leaving their mark. Three years in the past, a spate of incidents prompted lawmakers to stiffen penalties for vandalizing Italy’s venerable cultural heritage. And the nation desires to impose even tougher laws on local weather activists, who’ve vandalized cultural property to protest what they name authorities inaction on local weather change.

“It should be said that when foreign tourists come to Italy, from anywhere, not any particular nationality, there’s this idea that they’ve come to a country where everything is allowed, where they turn a blind eye, where it’s that’s how it goes,” mentioned Alexandro Maria Tirelli, Mr. Dimitrov’s lawyer. But his consumer might get caught within the crackdown, risking between two and 5 years in jail and a tremendous as much as 15,000 euros, about $16,300. Mr. Tirelli mentioned he hoped for a plea discount that can enable his consumer to pay a tremendous however serve no jail time.

Mr. Dimitrov’s apology, the lawyer mentioned, was an try to clarify “that he had pulled what he thought was a harmless stunt.”

Italian media on Wednesday pulled no punches. The letter of apology “defaced common sense,” Il Messaggero declared. Dagospia, a well-liked on-line web site, instructed the letter solely made issues worse (Did he assume the Colosseum was a fast-food restaurant, it requested?). A news anchor on the lunchtime news program of RAI 1, the primary state channel, mentioned the truth that Mr. Dimitrov hadn’t identified that the monument was historic “is really a somewhat unbelievable excuse.”

A spokesman for the Rome’s mayor workplace mentioned that they’d not acquired Mr. Dimitrov’s letter. The Rome prosecutor’s workplace declined to remark.

“I hope this apology will be accepted,” Mr. Dimitrov wrote within the letter.