Italian Culture Ministry – Illicit Cultural Property

Austerity, Sponsorship and Preservation in Italy

A structure in Pompeii in 2011

There is a report in the Daily Beast about the difficulty Italy may be having in preserving its considerable heritage:

For the last several months, chunks of marble have been plummeting from the Colosseum, ancient walls have been reduced to rubble and even bits of the baroque Trevi Fountain have crumbled, changing forever the face of that illustrious monument. And that’s just in Rome. In Naples, the Royal Palace has fractures in its façade and once-glorious fountains in the city’s squares are covered in graffiti. Pompeii is at risk of becoming a wasteland as its ruins disintegrate to dust due to lack of maintenance. In Emilia Romagna, important churches and clock towers damaged in a series of springtime earthquakes will never be repaired. There simply is no money left in Italy’s tightened budget to take care of the country’s cultural heritage. Austerity measures to combat Italy’s stifling public debt and save the country from default has meant there is little money left over for anything but the bare necessities. But the bigger problem is that basic maintenance on many of the country’s cultural gems has been neglected for years. Recent budget cuts are just the last nail in the sarcophagus. In reality, the culture budget has been the first to be cut for the last several years. A full third—€1.42 billion—has been slashed from the culture budget in the last three years, meaning vital maintenance on some of the country’s most important monuments was never carried out.

I’m always skeptical of English language reporting of ways in which Italians aren’t caring for their heritage. But cutting a culture budget by 1/3 is a drastic step. Of course cuts of all kinds are taking place, it was recently announced that the Georgia State archives will be closed after Nov. 1. I for one won’t shed a tear for a bit of the gaudy Trevi fountain crumbling, and the pressures on Pompeii are nothing new. But so many cuts to heritage protection by a nation that respects and values its past is a sad sign of the difficulty facing culture ministries all over the world. It is no surprise that asking for sponsorship from the private sector may be a viable alternative. Selling the buildings may appear to be a drastic step, but there are historic preservation rules in place in Italy which would largely preserve the appearance of the protected buildings, if not the public access.

Barbie Latza Nadeau, Italy’s Culture Falling to Ruins Amid Austerity Cuts, The Daily Beast (Sep 19, 2012).

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

More Collapsing Structures in Pompeii

Sylvia Poggioli/NPR

The Berlusconi government is coming under fire for failing to protect buildings at Pompeii and elsewhere from the elements. A piece of Rome’s colosseum fell, part of the home of Emperor Nero crumbled, and now buildings at Pompeii are being damaged by the elements.

All this while Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti said “you can’t eat culture” as he cut funds for the culture ministry. I think anyone who has experienced the delights of Porchetta might seriously disagree with that assertion. That dish was mentioned by Roman writers as early as 400 BCE.

Sylvia Poggioli reports that:

Budget cuts led to a drastic drop in the number of guards, so it’s easy to sneak into the houses and get a glimpse of ancient frescoed walls that are exposed to the elements. Made with humble local stone, these homes were not built to last 2,000 years — all the more need for routine maintenance.

These objects are part of Italy’s cultural heritage, but they are part of our heritage as well. I’m frustrated that the best the Berlusconi government seems able to do is to use Disney as a model for the care and protections of these sites, as Luigi Necco puts it “Why this Disneyland here in the center of Pompeii . . . the center of a human tragedy of 2,000 years ago?”

Sylvia Poggioli, A Collapse In Pompeii Highlights Neglect In Italy NPR, http://www.npr.org/2010/12/02/131581852/a-collapse-in-pompeii-highlights-neglect-in-italy (last visited Dec 2, 2010).

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Results of Italy’s Telethon

Stefano Luppi of the ArtNewspaper (which has made some impressive updates to its website) has the results of Italy’s antiquities telethon which took place Oct. 5-7. Here’s an excerpt:

Culture minister Francesco Rutelli, as well as actors and opera singers, appeared on the state broadcasting channel RAI to describe the plight of the country’s monuments, many left unprotected for lack of funds.Seven monuments were selected to receive the money raised by viewers. These included: Augustus’s villa on the Palatine Hill in Rome, where the frescoes and flooring are decaying from exposure to sun and rain; the village and surrounding area of Santa Maria del Cedro in Calabria, an important site associated with the Enotrians, an early Italic tribe; the Racconigi Royal Park in Cuneo, an English-style romantic 18th-century garden in which the first Italian pineapples were grown, where the 19th-century greenhouse needs conserving; a museum for visually impaired people in Ancona that allows visitors to run their hands along reproductions of sculptures and archaeological finds; a Punic necropolis in Sardinia, dating back to the fourth century BC; Cremona’s centre for the restoration of antique musical instruments which specialises in antique violins and the 19th-century railway line which connects the Sicilian baroque towns of Syracuse, Modica and Ragusa.

Donations are still possible. The fundraising target was $5 million, while it seems close to $4 million has been raised so far. If more funds are needed, might Italy consider selling or leasing some of its antiquities? That probably wouldn’t be a popular decision in Italy, but might help reduce the illicit trade.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Monteleone Di Spoleto Wants Its Chariot Back

This exquisite bronze chariot was discovered in 1902 by a farmer clearing some of his land. Today’s New York Times has an interesting article by Elisabetta Povoledo on the small Northern-Italian village which wants this chariot returned.

The 2,600 year-old bronze chariot was assembled in 1903, but has recently been reassembled to better show what Etruscan chariots probably looked like at the time. Carol Vogel had a nice article on the new reconstruction last week here. It’s also got an excellent slide show of the chariot. The image above shows the chariot before the reconstruction, the picture below is after.

As the Mayor of Monteleone Di Spoleto Nando Durastanti says, “I’m very sorry for the Met because they’ve done a great job in making the most of the chariot.” This is not a claim pursued by the Italian Culture Ministry, rather mayor Durastanti enlisted an Atlanta lawyer named Tito Mazzetta to pursue its claims.

Mazzetta argues that Italian law in 1902 dictated that the chariot was the property of the state, and he uses a decision by the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University which returned an Egyptian Mummy in 2004 even though it had been exported to North America in 1864. Mazzetta wants another exception carved out in the already exception-ridden statute of limitations provisions. I’m not sure what kind of exception he hopes to carve out, but I think he’s going to have a difficult time with it. The Demand and Refusal rule which is the law in the State of New York triggers a limitations period when an object that has been missing is demanded from its current possessor. That is the most generous limitations rule that I am aware of in the US. In this case, the Italian State knew about the chariot in 1904. The New York Times has an article on Feb. 16, 1904 in which Italian authorities were critical of the chariot’s export. In any case, it seems that an equitable defense such as laches would certainly step in and prevent a repatriation.

This is a difficult battle for Mayor Durastanti, given that over a century has passed with the chariot on display at the Met, and the Italian Culture Ministry does not support the repatriation. His claim is an ethical one. However those claims need public pressure to be effective. Without the support of the Italian Culture Ministry, that is a nearly impossible battle to win in my view.

As Maurizio Firorilli, a lawyer with the Italian Culture Ministry said, “the preconditions that have guided other negotiations don’t exist in this case.” I think that is right, even though Mazzetta still attempts to stake the moral high ground in the dispute by saying “When lawyers challenged the slaver laws or fought for equal rights for women, people thought they were out of their minds … Laws should be changed. The crimes of the past should not be condoned.” That may be true, but this antiquity seems a very different situation from something like slavery.

The chariot was found by chance by an Italian farmer who didn’t know what he had found. He sold the bronze chariot as scrap metal so that he could re-tile his roof. Perhaps the chariot should be returned to Italy, but the World’s museums cannot be emptied of all antiquities and works of art which originated in another nation.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Protest over a Da Vinci Loan

This work by Leonardo Da Vinci, the Annunciation, is slated to be displayed in Tokyo until mid June. However, a number of Italians are upset about the loan. Italian Senator Paolo Amato pictured below has chained himself to the entrance to the Uffizi gallery in Florence to protest the loan. The BBC has a story here, and an AP story is here.

Cultural policy is a much more prominent part of Italian politics than in many other countries. Amato has accused Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli of being “arrogant” for deciding to agree to the loan. The work has travelled before, to Paris and Milan in the 1930’s, and it was hidden during WWII. However, it has remained in the Uffizi since 1945.

I have very little knowledge of how risky transportation of important works is. The work “was being bundled into three protective crates filled with shock-absorbers and high-tech sensors to monitor humidity, temperatures and stress levels in preparation for departure Tuesday.” That seems pretty secure to me, but I suppose any risk of loss of this important work would be a tragedy.

Thanks to David Nishimura at Cronaca for pointing out the story.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Getty Panel to Study "Cult Statue of a Goddess"

The Getty Museum has today announced it will bring together a panel to study this statue, probably of Aphrodite, known as the “Cult Statue of a Goddess”. Last November, Michael Brand announced the Getty would transfer full title of the statue to Italy. He said the Getty would try to return the statue within 12 months. The Italian Ministry of Culture has demanded other objects though, including the “Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth” which I’ve discussed here many times.

The experts have expertise in archeology, pollen analysis, stone analysis, and art history. University of Virginia Professor in Art History Malcolm Bell III has signed on to the workshop. He has been critical of the negative impact the antiquities market has had on archaeological context in the past. You can read a 2005 article he wrote here at the Museum Security Network. In it he said this statue “is an extremely rare example of the sort of cult statue that once stood within a Greek temple. While, as some have asserted, this remarkable work may come from Morgantina (a site in Sicily where I serve as co-director of excavations), no proof of its origin is known, and its subject is just as uncertain. The market destroyed the evidence.”

Both the Italian Ministry of Culture and the Sicilian Regional Minister of Culture and Environmental Heritage have been invited to attend as well. The demand for this kind of statue motivated those who illicitly excavated and exported this work from its source nation. This workshop aims to study the statue, with the presumed goal of finding the findspot or provenience of this statue.

Scientific study is of course welcome, and perhaps these experts will be able to look at the soil and other residue removed from the statue when it was cleaned and learn a lot about it. However, if the market only dealt in licit antiquities, chances are we would know a great deal more about this statue. Many have criticized the Getty’s aggressive antiquities-buying in the past, as the large sums of money they were willing to pay for these objects helped to fuel the illicit market.

The workshop is set to take place in May, and the findings will be peer-reviewed and then published.

What will the impact of this workshop be? The Getty has already agreed to return the statue, and the Italian Culture Ministry has insisted more objects should be returned. I am not sure what scientific data can be gleaned from the statue and the concretions at this point. I suspect it will not be conclusive, and will perhaps point to a number of findspots.

Dr. Brand says of the panel “the questions and allegations surrounding the statue’s origins are complex and often contradictory. Our role as responsible stewards demands that we examine these questions in greater detail…We look forward to the opportunity to work with our international colleagues to shed more light on this subject.” I hope both the Getty and Italy are able to work together to reach an effective compromise on this and the other works in the Getty collection.

Italians are very proud of their ancient history and rightly so. These disputes implicate national and cultural feelings. A productive dialogue would seem to be a better solution to this problem than a lot of the rhetoric which seems to fly back and forth in the press by both sides.

If the study is able to show the statue originated in another nation, like present-day Turkey, if the Getty will decide against returning the statue to Italy. The Getty’s message to Italy seems clear, if you aren’t willing to negotiate on these objects, we will look at them ourselves and determine where they should belong. From the legal and policy perspective, it would be much more helpful if the Getty clearly outlined the process an object goes through before it is repatriated. What kind of calculus is involved in deciding to repatriate? It seems that in the Italian case, the Culture Ministry has been extremely vocal and forced the Getty’s hand in recent years.

Lee Rosenbaum over at Culturgrrl has a post on the same topic as well.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com