[CPProt.net] Italy Trying to Get Back Looted Art

[Ton Cremers]

 Jan. 13, 2006, 2:56PM
Italy Trying to Get Back Looted Art

By ARIEL DAVID Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

ROME - Italy has proposed loaning important antiquities to New York's Metropolitan 
Museum of Art if it returns several prized artifacts that Italy says were looted, a government 
lawyer said Friday.

The offer was aimed at ending a dispute over cultural treasures that Italy claims were illegally 
removed from the country and are now in foreign collections.

Italian Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione sent the proposal to the Metropolitan this week, said 
a lawyer for the Italian state, Maurizio Fiorilli.

Metropolitan spokesman Harold Holzer said the museum has yet to receive Italy's proposal. 
"We will not be commenting until it has been received and reviewed," he said.

Fiorilli spoke on the sidelines of an antiquities trafficking trial of two Americans in Rome, a 
case that highlights Italy's aggressive campaign to regain artifacts from its Etruscan, Roman 
and other ancient civilizations.

Marion True, a former antiquities curator of the Getty Museum, and a U.S. art dealer, Robert 
Hecht, are accused by Italian prosecutors of knowingly dealing in stolen art.

Hecht, 86, made his first appearance Friday at the trial, which began in November. He and 
True have denied wrongdoing.

The Italian proposal was discussed in Rome in November when Buttiglione met with the 
Metropolitan's director, Philippe de Montebello, according to Fiorilli.

"I presume that it will be accepted because there is nothing different than what was agreed 
upon" when the minister and the Metropolitan's director met, the lawyer said.

Italy is offering to let the Met keep _ through 2007 _ the Morgantina silver collection, which 
was excavated in Sicily, and the Euphronios Krater, a 6th century B.C. painted vase that a 
former Met director, Thomas Hoving, has described as one of the finest examples of its kind.

Italy also would lend equally important pieces for up to four years, Fiorilli said.

In exchange, the Metropolitian would have to return several spectacular pieces authorities 
contend were looted.

Italian law says that all antiquities found on Italian soil are the property of the state.

Fiorilli said under the deal being offered, the Metropolitan could finance archaeological digs in 
Italy, then take the finds to the United States for study and restoration.

Museum officials would compare their collection to photos found in the Geneva offices, 
according to the deal.

"If the photos correspond to an object in their collection, in this case, they give it back to us 
without problems," Fiorilli said.

The trial grew out of a probe of an Italian art dealer, Giacomo Medici, who has been 
convicted of trafficking in looted antiquities. Police raiding Medici's offices in Switzerland 
found a trove of photos of allegedly looted antiquities and artifacts.

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