A 52-year-old Spanish tourist
was killed Thursday after being struck by an "architectural
element" that fell off the top of a nave in Florence's Santa
Croce Basilica, sources said.
A fairly large piece of a capital came crashing down from 20
metres up and hit the man, Daniel Testor Schnell from Barcelona,
on the head, they said.
Medical teams rushed to the spot but were unable to revive
Schnell, who was visiting the church with his wife.
The piece of stone, a "peduccio" bolstering the base of
wooden structures, fell off the right-hand transept of the
basilica, a superintendency expert said.
The expert said there were no other known "critical elements"
in the church, which was "subject to periodic checks".
Schnell's body is still in the basilica where forensic and
other tests are being carried out, sources said.
The Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross) is
one of the Tuscan capital's best-known churches.
The basilica is the principal Franciscan church in Florence,
Italy, and a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic Church.
It is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 metres
south-east of the Duomo.
The site, when first chosen, was in marshland outside the
city walls.
It is the burial place of some of the most illustrious
Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, the poet
Foscolo, the philosopher Gentile and the composer Rossini, thus
it is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories
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