One of Milan’s most iconic symbols, has become the subject of criticism on social media.
The mosaic of the rearing bull in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of Milan’s most famous landmarks, is currently undergoing restoration. Due to the constant ritual performed by tourists who place their heel on the bull’s groin and spin around in the hope of gaining good luck and ensuring a return visit to Milan, a section of the mosaic gradually wears away, forming a small crater. In less than ten years, the bull’s testicles have sunk by approximately 2.5 centimeters, creating a hole in which the pink marble tiles representing the animal’s reproductive organs have been ground to dust.
Detail from the mosaic floor in the Gallery Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy. Photo G.dallorto. Wikimedia Commons
“This tradition dates back to the nineteenth century. Periodically, however, the mosaic has to be restored; the last time was in 2017. We continue to do so in order to keep this space beautiful and available to everyone,” said Marco Granelli, Milan’s Councillor for Public Works. The city administration routinely budgets for the periodic replacement of the damaged mosaic tiles, explaining that the restoration will allow visitors to continue spinning their heels on the animal because the ritual has been part of Milanese folklore for almost two centuries.
As a result, trusted restorer Gianluca Galli, from Belluno, was called back into service. He had already restored the floor in 2017 for the 150th anniversary of the Galleria. Four days of work and a cost of five thousand euros, officials announced, would make the bull look as good as new. On Sunday, Granelli proudly posted photos of the completed restoration. However, hundreds of users immediately noticed a detail that left them puzzled: the bull’s genitals, the focal point of the good-luck ritual and the main reason for the attraction’s popularity, appeared less prominent than before.
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy. Photo Leonhard Lenz. Wikimedia Commons
The images shared on social media by the councillor after five days of restoration sparked widespread irony among Milan residents and tourists, who feared that the legendary lucky bull had been deprived of its famous attributes. A comparison of the before-and-after photographs clearly highlighted the difference. During the initial phase of the restoration work, the apparent disappearance of the testicles led many to joke that the bull had been turned into an ox.
In reality, the tiles representing the animal’s genitals have not disappeared. They were simply recreated using pink marble, restoring a color more consistent with the rest of the animal and employing a material closer to the mosaic’s nineteenth-century appearance. The 2017 restoration had used a darker marble, making the features more visible and pronounced than in the original work. Thus, it is the different shade of the new tiles, not any change in shape or size, that creates the impression that the bull’s attributes have vanished or shrunk.
When contacted, the restorer defended himself by stating that the work had not yet been completed. Moreover, he emphasized that he had worked for four days under the supervision of municipal technicians without receiving any objections. “It is surreal to criticize a restoration that is not yet finished. These controversies make me smile. They always happen whenever there is a restoration, and it is ridiculous that today’s restoration is being compared with the previous one, given that I carried out both,” Galli said.
He also pointed out that the materials had been supplied by the city’s technical staff, a claim reiterated by Granelli: “We have recovered the oldest marbles and the design follows the original drawing. […] We still need to wait for the newly glued tiles to settle; then the entire surface will be polished and finished.”
Naturally, one may wonder why millions of people each year place their heel on the bull and spin around three times. Some have suggested that the ritual may be connected to ancient fertility cults. In the nineteenth century, women were reportedly the main participants, discreetly touching the mosaic in the hope of conceiving a child. Over the decades, the concept of “fertility” gradually became secularized and expanded to include economic prosperity, transforming the ritual into a broader wish for good fortune in business and life.
According to another historical interpretation, trampling the most vulnerable and intimate part of the animal, symbolic of the people of Piedmont, originated as a playful insult during a period when the economic, political, and cultural rivalry between Milan and Turin was at its peak. Popular tradition also suggests that it may have been an ancient New Year’s Eve ritual, performed on December 31 to secure good luck for the coming year.
Whatever its true origin, this secular ritual owes its success first to the mass tourism of the second half of the twentieth century and later to globalization and the rise of social media. Today, it has become a daily practice that is both a marker of local identity and a trendy tourist attraction, once again highlighting the tension between making cultural heritage accessible to the public and ensuring its long-term preservation.
2017 restoration. Photo Robre62. Wikimedia Commons, license CC BY-SA 4.0
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