Italy's Art Squad Celebrates 40 Years of Success

On 3 May 1969, the Carabinieri (Italian National Police) instituted a 16-member unit within the Ministry of Public Education with the purpose of protecting cultural heritage. Predating the UNESCO 1970 treaty by a year, Italy became an early leader in the protection of cultural heritage and has since dedicated unprecedented effort to keeping Italy's myriad artistic treasures safe.

40 years later, Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo is host to the exhibition "L'Arma per l'Arte - Antologia di Meraviglie," or "Armed Forces for Art: Anthology of Wonders," which highlights the growth and success of the now-called Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela Patrimonio Culturale - or division for the protection of cultural patrimony - by telling the stories of embattled masterpieces that have been looted, stolen, trafficked, or otherwise put at risk, and finally, through the investigative and legal efforts of the TPC, have made a homecoming back in Italy.

The show is organized into three sections: works recovered from abroad by means of legal action, works recovered from abroad by means of letters of request and cooperation, and works recovered within the Republic of Italy. The pieces range from paintings, spirited away from unprotected churches or museums in the Italian countryside and smuggled far from their homes, to ancient pieces that ended up in prominent foreign collections after being taken in illegal digs by tombaroli (tomb raiders) and smuggled out of Italy after the UNESCO treaty of 1970. Each piece on display has a narrative of the theft and recovery, highlighting the often long and complicated process of tracking down a painting after it disappears into thin air, or finding an artifact that was never even known to exist before being dug up by a tombarolo.

The exhibit also features a tour of the Carabinieri TPC's online resources, where visitors can research a database of over 12,500 stolen works of art and also find advice about what to do in case of a discovered object of suspicious provenance or clandestine dig.

The most famous piece on display is the Sarpedon krater attributed to Euphronios, which was returned from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2008 after some 35 years out of Italy. Other notable works include paintings by Raphael, Bellini and Van Gogh, and a marble statue of Hadrian's wife Sabina, which the Boston Museum of Fine Arts agreed to return in 2006.

"L'Arma per L'Arte 1969-2009" continues through 30 January 2010, at Castel Sant'Angelo, in Rome.

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