Seven female 'guardians of decorum' went into action in Venice on Friday in a bid to stop tourists going about bare-chested, lounging around in doorways and eating sandwiches in St Mark's Square.
Dressed in smart blue trousers, white tops and white caps, the 'hostesses' watched over the city's most famous square and tourist magnet, stepping in at the first sign of 'uncivilised' behaviour.
Witnesses said the women, all aged between 24 and 30 and fluent in three languages, were understanding with weary travellers wanting to rest their feet but implacable when T-shirts came off or improvised picnics began.
The women, who work for a municipal agency called Vesta, have already earned the nickname Vestali, the Italian word for the Vestal Virgins who looked after an important temple in ancient Rome.
They are set to work staggered six-hour shifts throughout the summer as part of recent moves by Venice council to ensure that Venice stays clean and maintains its charm despite the presence of 20 million visitors a year.
"We are fighting an increasingly intensive battle to make sure that certain standards of behavior are respected by everyone, tourists and natives," Augusto Salvadori, a councillor in charge of "decorum", said recently.
The city is also working on laws to stop the sale of fast food in the piazza so as to limit the amount of rubbish that accumulates there and which street cleaners can only remove once a day.
Even the vendors who sell tourists grain to feed the pigeons in St Mark's Square are being forced to move away so as to reduce the quantity of droppings which soil the piazza and erode its buildings.
"People who violate these norms protecting the city should be punished with hefty fines," Salvadori said.
In another move to keep Venice looking smart, administrators are preparing to crack down on the street artists that flock to the lagoon city hoping to earn a few euros from well-heeled tourists.
The council is targeting in particular the musicians who play in front of open-air restaurants and the mime artists who dress in 18th century costumes and offer to liven up tourists' photos with their presence.
New rules soon to be approved will place a limit on the number of such "performers" in the city and ban them from St Mark's Square, the famous piazza next to the Doge's palace at the end of the Grand Canal.
