When tourists reported Japanese language graffiti written by some students on the walls of Florence’s Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, it became a huge news story in Japan, prompting the punishment of the students and an official apology trip to Italy:

A Japanese teenager who was caught on video daubing graffiti on the Duomo in Florence flew back to the Renaissance city at her own expense to apologise, Italian media reported on Wednesday.

The 19-year-old fashion student from Japan’s Gifu University also offered 600 euros (950 dollars), television and news agency reports said.

“We accept the apologies (and) we accept the money exceptionally for the gesture’s great sense of civility,” said the Duomo’s chief curator Anna Mitrano, flanked by the university’s visiting rector, Yukitoshi Matsuda.

When initial reports of the graffiti appeared on Japanese television, many viewers were shocked that fellow Japanese were vandalizing the walls of a UN World Heritage site. The early reports made no mention of how almost every inch of some areas of the cathedral’s walls were covered in graffiti, a fact that was revealed later when Japanese networks were able to dispatch camera teams to Florence. On a couple of the follow-up news reports from Florence, Japanese cameras were even able to record Italians and foreign tourists writing graffiti on the walls.

When news of the graffiti scandal made it into the Italian press, some thought the reaction in Japan and the punishment of the students was too harsh. The fact that an act of graffiti by a few students could become a national scandal in Japan may have even improved the overall image of Japanese tourists in Italy.