ITALIAN police have raised the alarm over the growing "looting and pillaging" of art and
antiquities after the theft of a 2nd century marble pillar from the restored ruins of Hadrian's
Villa, once the richest and most extensive of Roman imperial palaces. General Roberto Conforti, head
of the Carabinieri Anti-Art Theft Squad, said that up to 40 million people were expected in Rome
next year for the millennium, and some would be unable to resist taking home a "souvenir". General
Conforti said ordinary tourists were often as much to blame for damaging or stealing Italy's art
treasures as professional thieves stealing to order: "We seem to be operating a help-yourself
service. If every tourist takes home a little souvenir of the Eternal City, there will not be much
of it left."
The 3ft high pink marble column, weighing 265lbs, was stolen at the weekend from the Nympheum in
the huge villa's famed Golden Square, thought to have been used as the Emperor's summer dining
area.
Hadrian (AD 76-138) spent much of his reign travelling his empire. Towards the end of his rule he
built his summer retreat amid the olive groves and cypresses of Tivoli, in the hills 15 miles from
Rome, telling his architects to match the marvels he had seen in Greece and the Nile Delta. The
Emperor is thought to have been particularly fond of the Golden Square, and of the Maritime
Theatre, a colonnaded pool with an island to which he retreated for his siesta.
The Corriere della Sera daily said that the vandalism at the villa would dismay Hadrian's many
admirers, including President Clinton, whose holiday reading this year reportedly included
Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian, in which the dying Emperor reflects on power, love and
death.
The thieves are believed to have climbed a perimeter fence - which in places is less than 5ft high
- and loaded the column on to a lorry parked in a country road. Anna Maria Reggiani, Superintendent
of Archaeology for the Lazio region, said she was very upset by the loss, which follows a UKP.10
million restoration of the villa. "It is not so much the value of the stolen column as the timing
and symbolism of the theft," she said.
The villa and gardens have been illuminated at night during the summer, with concerts amid the
ruins selling out. But custodians said that the Golden Square was in a "peripheral area" which had
not been lit at night. There were four night-watchmen to patrol the 300-acre site and alarms were
only installed at the main entrance, in the museum and in the restoration workshops.
Last weekend three German tourists were arrested in Siena for taking bricks stamped with heraldic
emblems from a Renaissance palazzo undergoing restoration. The three were given six-month suspended
sentences and fined UKP.150 pounds each. General Conforti said that Italy's penalties for such
thefts constituted an insufficient deterrent.
He also said Italy lacked the resources to protect a heritage "which belongs not only to Italy but
also to the world". Thieves working on behalf of the Mafia or private collectors found art thefts
"easier than robbing a bank", while no amount of vigilance could stop tourists "putting a piece of
ancient mosaic in their pockets", he told Il Messaggero.
He said that marble columns had also disappeared from the Appian Way, and that whole areas of the
Roman ruins at Ostia Antica - once Rome's coastal port - had had to be closed off because of lack
of staff.
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?999
BOSTON (AP) - An original Claude Monet and two works by Camille Pissarro that were willed to the
blue-collar city of Lawrence cannot be sold to raise money for the city's cultural programs, a
federal judge ruled Tuesday.
The fate of the paintings, which includes pieces by several lesser-known artists, has sparked a
dispute between leaders in Lawrence and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
For nearly 90 years, the paintings have been at the museum, and museum leaders have fought
Lawrence's effort to sell the paintings. It is estimated the Monet and Pissarro works could bring in
between $5.5 million and $7.5 million at auction.
Monet's ``Field of Poppies, near Giverny,'' the Pissarros and 14 other works were the property of
the Rev. William Wolcott, who in 1911 willed the paintings to the private Daniel White Fund to
``create and gratify a public taste for fine art, particularly among the people of Lawrence.''
Wolcott ordered the pictures housed at the MFA until a suitable gallery could be built in Lawrence,
a city 35 miles north of Boston better known for industry than culture.
Nearly a century later, a gallery is still not in the city's plans and trustees of the art decided
to reclaim the art and sell it at auction.
The MFA fought the move, saying the will stipulates that the trustees maintain ownership of the
paintings ``permanently and inalienably,'' and may not sell them.
U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Hinkle agreed. ``The Trustees are to have permanent possession
and control of the paintings. Therefore nothing in the will permits the Trustees to sell the
paintings,'' she wrote.
Andrew Griesinger, an attorney for the MFA, said the museum was ``delighted that the court has
decided that the most important paintings in the collection will definitely not be sold and will
remain available to be seen by people in this region, including people from Lawrence.''
The fate of the remaining 14 paintings - which include much less valuable works by American artists
Hugh Bolton Jones and Alexander Lawrie - were to be decided separately.
Richard Renehan, an attorney for the art's trustees, said he would appeal the decision, and said he
would ask that a separate trial on the remaining works be postponed.
Griesinger said that if Lawrence were to build a gallery the MFA would happily give the paintings
back.
``We don't own them,'' he said, ``but the will requires us to have them under the current
circumstances.''
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19990907/us/mill_town_s_monet_1.html