Rome’s Trevi Fountain was a veritable cash cow for the Eternal city’s charities in 2016, according to new data.
The charity Caritas said this week that tourists tossed €1.4m (£1.2m) into the baroque fountain last year, helping to subsidise a supermarket for Rome’s needy, according to media reports.
The fountain, covered in mythological figures and commonly cited as one of the world’s most famous, dates back to 1762 and has featured prominently in fiction, perhaps most notably in the 1954 film Three Coins in the Trevi Fountain.
Tradition dictates that visitors should throw a coin into it using the right hand over the left shoulder if they wish to return to the city one day.
According to German press agency dpa, the value of the coins retrieved from the fountain last year was up by more than €100,000 on the 2013 figure, which was the last year for which figures were available.
The monument was largely covered up from 2014 to 2015, during a restoration funded by the Fendi fashion label.
Caritas was not immediately available for further comment when contacted by The Independent.
