[MSN] Court rules Italy should return Venus to Libya

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

  Court rules Italy should return Venus to Libya

/Mon Apr 23, 1:09 PM ET/

Italy can return to Libya an ancient statue of Venus taken to Rome 
during Italian colonial rule in 1912, after a court ruled on Monday it 
was not part of Italy's cultural heritage.

The headless "Venus of Cyrene" was carried away from the town of Cyrene 
-- an ancient Greek colony -- by Italian troops and put on display in Rome.

Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's promise to return it on a 
visit to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2002 was blocked by legal 
action lodged by a group called "Our Italy," whose aim is to keep 
Italy's cultural treasures in Italian ownership.

Alessandro Ruffini, lawyer for the Libyan embassy in Rome, told Reuters 
the Lazio appeals court ruling that Italy did not have an historic claim 
to the statue was "well grounded."

He said this could set a helpful precedent for Italy's own efforts to 
recover works of art smuggled abroad.

Some Italians oppose the return of such works of art, with National 
Alliance deputy Fabio Rampelli lamenting "the systematic looting of 
Italy's 'naturalized' artistic heritage."

He hoped the Venus would not "suffer the same fate" as the ancient Axum 
Obelisc which troops of dictator Benito Mussolini took from what was 
then Abyssinia in 1937. It was returned to Ethiopia to be "abandoned on 
a rooftop," according to Rampelli.

Late last year Rome was rebuffed by the Getty Museum when it requested 
the return of a 2,500-year-old Greek statue of a boy. Italy threatened 
to break off ties with the wealthy Los Angeles museum over the statue 
and other works that it says were looted.

http://news.yahoo.com/