Ecce Mono: The Monkey Christ
The world's most beloved botched restoration
Image: Unsplash
- Repair Cost
- Priceless (now a tourist attraction)
- Curator's Blood Pressure
- 70% (then soaring tourism)
- Embarrassment Level
- 11/10
- Recovered?
- Gloriously no
- Selfie Involved?
- Millions since
Well-meaning parishioner Cecilia Giménez attempted to touch up a flaking fresco of Christ and produced 'Ecce Mono' — a hazy, simian visage that became a global sensation.
Elías García Martínez's modest 'Ecce Homo' had been quietly deteriorating on a church wall in Borja. Cecilia Giménez, then in her eighties, took it upon herself to restore it — and repainted the face into something between a startled monkey and a melting fresco.
The internet fell instantly in love. What began as a disaster became the town's economic salvation: tens of thousands of tourists now make the pilgrimage, a small museum was built, and Giménez receives royalties. It remains the only mishap in this section that arguably improved everyone's fortunes.