Not for the paint-hearted: One man's war against Rome's graffiti

Rome is known across the world as the Eternal City. But for Valerio Tuveri, it's the eternal paint that's the problem.

Renowned on Instagram and TikTok as "the guy who cleans Rome," @mr.tuvs racks up hundreds of thousands of views as he strips the streets and sidewalks of Rome from graffiti, which costs city authorities $2.8 million annually.

Armed with a high-pressure sand blaster, Tuveri painstakingly erases tags, slogans and imagery that he says disfigure the Italian capital's ancient architecture. 

"Rome is, in my opinion, the most beautiful city in the world, but at the same time the most vandalised city in Europe. There is more meaningless lettering, writing everywhere, defaced monuments, private homes, cars, shutters, everywhere."

Yet the writings inscribed on the city's walls are also a nod to the tensions within them. Some of the tags that Tuveri is tackling refer to the death of Abderrahim Fakir, a Moroccan man who was pinned to the ground by two police officers during an arrest on July 19 in Bologna, northern Italy. 

A video circulated across social media showing paramedics looking on as Fakir was apprehended, restrained, sprayed with tear gas and pushed face-down to the ground. 

Protests broke out in the days following the incident, and the message spread to other cities across the country. Earlier this year, Rome itself was flooded with both anti- and pro-migration demonstrators; back in October 2025, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest US-Israeli assaults on Palestinians in Gaza, and pro-Palestinian graffiti spelled out the mood of the city. 

But it's not just modern-day events that have been inscribed on Rome's walls. The city has been a hotspot for street-art and vandalism, depending on your viewpoint, for millennia. 

This dedication to desecration is best detailed by the Alexamenos graffito, an ancient piece of Roman wall art widely considered the earliest surviving visual representation of the crucifixion of Jesus. Found in 1856 on the Palatine Hill, inside a building believed to be a school or residence for imperial pages, the materialization of one cheeky child's inner thoughts is now forever immortalized in the nearby Palatine Museum.  

But for Tuveri, context makes all the difference, and he feels that the tags of today are out of place in the ancient city.  

"Graffiti like this, of this kind, in the center of Rome, right in the heart of Rome: what's the point? In theory, graffiti should give, or rather restore, art to something that doesn't have any. But if Rome is already art, well, there's no point."

Emilia del Monte, local resident and tour guide, has mixed feelings. Speaking in Trastevere, known for its cheap eats and boisterous nightlife, she says the graffiti here adds to the edge and grittiness that students and creatives have cultivated over decades. 

"I say, it’s a distinctive thing, it makes it a bit 'street,' which might actually be true now. But let's at least try to keep the other neighborhoods clean, like Monteverde, which have a different style that should be respected. A mural is one thing, a random tag is another."

Still, Tuveri's mission to wipe clean the streets of Rome won't exactly happen overnight. Though he continues to advocate for CCTV and fines, Rome's city councillor for environmental policy and citizen relations, Stefano Marin, says that Rome has limited financial resources "compared to the size of the territory and the frequency of acts of vandalism".

For now, it's a Herculean task, monumental effort expended for seemingly little reward. But as copycat cleaners start to spring up in towns and cities across Italy, and even further afield like Spain and Brazil, Tuveri's message is spreading. Hopefully for his sake, it stays as word of mouth.