The 28-year-old visitor reportedly climbed over the railings and the edge of the basin, then hauled herself up onto the legs of one of the horses on the sculpture to avoid stepping in the water as she reached for the statue’s genitals.
She later told police it was a dare being filmed for social media as part of a hen weekend, according to Italian media reports.
The woman's nationality was not disclosed.
Municipal police removed the woman from the fountain and charged her with damaging a protected artistic monument - which potentially carries a fine of up to €40,000.
Experts who inspected the fountain on Monday found "minor but significant damage to both the legs of the horses she had walked on and to the frieze she held on to in order to avoid slipping," the city council said.
The Neptune fountain, known to Florentines as il Biancone, the ‘Big White One’ was created by sculptor Bartolomeo Ammannati, commissioned by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1559 to mark the marriage of his son Francesco I to Joanna of Austria.
The basin encloses horses pulling a shell-shaped chariot at the base of a statue of Neptune, the Roman god of the sea.
It was not the first time a tourist had tried to mount it .CCTV cameras were introduced in 2005 after a visitor broke one of the statue's hands.
In September 2023, a 22-year-old German tourist caused around €5,000 of damage attempting to climb the same fountain to take a selfie.
Giorgio Caselli, head of the city council's fine arts office, told The Guardian on Tuesday that it had become increasingly common for visitors to climb monuments as a social media challenge.
"The physical contact that is sought with the monument is far from the objective, emotional and intellectual awareness that we expect towards our monumental heritage," he said.
"We must not allow ourselves any conscientious concessions to the ignorance and superficiality that characterise such actions."
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