Italy’s Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli is making a point to skip this year’s Venice Biennale opening. Nevertheless, Giuli did make sure to attend a ceremony held at Rome’s La Marmora barracks yesterday. There, U.S. officials formally returned 337 looted antiquities, archival materials, and artworks back to Italy. The newfound treasures bear Etruscan, Greek, Italic, and Egyptian influences, and date from the Villanovan era (900 to 700 B.C.E.) through the Hellenistic period (323 to 31 B.C.E.).
Officials from Italy’s Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage worked alongside America’s Federal Bureau for Investigation and Department of Homeland Security—as well as the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.—to bring these relics home. Neither Italy’s Ministry of Culture nor the office of U.S. ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta returned my request for further details regarding precisely when and how these works vanished. But, press materials issued yesterday stated many “originated from clandestine excavations or were stolen from cultural institutions before subsequently being introduced into the international market.” All have been declared found since December.
Some 221 of these 337 rescued antiquities have arrived in Italy courtesy of the Manhattan DA, including an array of sculptures, bronzes, ceramics, and goldwork artifacts all hailing from the fifth century B.C.E. through third century C.E..
Bragg’s office also partnered with the FBI, Homeland Security, and even Christie’s to recover the remaining 116 objects on April 10. The subsection that the FBI helped with spans bronzes and terracottas from the Iron Age through Hellenistic times. Homeland Security, meanwhile, assisted with relics like a rudder, a vase from ancient Greece’s southern Italian colony of Canosa di Puglia, plus a cache of Roman coins.
More of the repatriated relics. Photo by Agnese Sbaffi © Ministry of Culture
Italy’s Ministry of Culture claims that the most important items to turn up from the whole endeavor include a marble head depicting Alexander the Great made during the first century C.E. that first turned up at the Roman Forum, a bronze sculpture once taken from the Herculaneum, and a pair of Egyptian basalt sculptures.
In yesterday’s release, Fertitta noted that this repatriation marks 25 years since the U.S. and Italy signed their first Memorandum of Understanding to jointly combat antiquities trafficking. The agreement, which has since been renewed four times—most recently in December—has since become the longest-standing Cultural Property Agreement in continental Europe.
Italian authorities have said that since 2022, this partnership has brought tens of millions of euros in treasures back to the country. These include 600 statues, paintings, and vessels collectively worth about €60 million ($65 million) that the U.S. restituted in 2024, and a Pompeii fresco fragment that returned to its rightful home last year. At least one Italian archaeologist, however, has argued that a sizeable percentage of the objects returned are actually fake.
According to Giuli, these latest artifacts “will now be the subject of study, preservation, and enhancement, ensuring they may eventually return to their places of origin and be made available for public enjoyment.” The Ministry of Culture added that their repatriation stands to yield “substantial economic and cultural benefits” for this 165 year-old nation with notably ancient roots.