Masaryk University Faculty of Economics and Administration Study program: Public Economy and Administration
THE ILLICIT MARKET OF CULTURAL GOODS: A HERITAGE IN PERPETUAL DANGER
Master’s Thesis
Thesis supervisor: Author:
Doc. Ing. František Svoboda, Ph.D. Marta La Falce
Prof. Roberto Zanola
Brno, 2019
UNIVERSITÀ DEL PIEMONTE ORIENTALE
DIPARTIMENTO DI GIURISPRUDENZA E SCIENZE POLITICHE, ECONOMICHE E SOCIALI
CORSO DI LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN ECONOMIA, MANAGEMENT E ISTITUZIONI
TESI DI LAUREA
THE ILLICIT MARKET OF CULTURAL GOODS: A HERITAGE IN PERPETUAL DANGER
Relatore: Chiar.mo Prof. Roberto Zanola Correlatore: Doc. Ing. František Svoboda, Ph.D. Candidato: Marta La Falce
ANNO ACCADEMICO 2017/2018
Name and surname of the author: Marta La Falce
Master’s thesis title: The Illicit Market of Cultural Goods: A Heritage in Perpetual Danger
Department: Economics and administration
Master’s thesis supervisor: Doc. Ing. František Svoboda, Ph.D.
Master’s thesis date: 2019
Annotation
Today, the phenomenon of illicit trafficking of works of art has become a problem felt by many nations that through the use of regulatory frameworks try to control this situation. The thesis will attempt to assess the weight that these illegal activities have both from a cultural point of view and from an economic one, trying to understand how the art market is influenced by the various actors and intermediaries connected to it. Speaking about the devastation of cultural heritage, it is clear that the abuses made against works of art in most of the cases have a lucrative purpose or are related to criminal actions disconnected from the cultural context. The thesis wants to underline how the activity of protection, prevention and conservation carried out by the various police forces is an admirable example of how the different countries respond and try to counter this phenomenon. Through history and cultural significance, the European Union seeks to establish a dialogue between different cultures and in recent years with globalization has tried to further intensify exchanges through cultural projects with non-EU countries. The purpose of the thesis, in addition to underlining the great dedication that is used to protect this enormous legacy of the past, also wants to highlight how culture is a powerful means to erase diversity and reduce distances between peoples. The aim is to place particular emphasis on the work of the Carabinieri Command - Protection of Cultural Heritage and on how the Ministry of Cultural Heritage in Italy considers extremely important to protect the cultural heritage not only at national level but also engaging in various missions abroad, especially in areas devastated by armed conflict. In conclusion, taking into account the fact that many stolen works of art are sold to those countries that do not have an enormous cultural heritage from the past, especially because their history was formed in more recent times, I believe and hope for a valid solution the exchange, lending and construction of multi-historical museum areas in all parts of the world.
Keywords
Cultural heritage, C.C. T.P.C., conservation, art market, counterfeit, protection, preservation, contrast, theft and smuggling.
Declaration
„I certify that I have written the Master’s Thesis “The Illicit Market of Cultural Goods: A Heritage in Perpetual Danger” by myself under the supervision of František Svoboda and I have listed all the literary and other specialist sources in accordance with legal regulations, Masaryk University internal regulations, and the internal procedural deeds of Masaryk University and the Faculty of Economics and Administration.“
Brno,
Author’s signature
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ...... 8
CHAPTER 1: CULTURAL HERITAGE AND PROTECTION ...... 10
1.1 DEFINITION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ...... 10
1.2 THE PROTECTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN EUROPE ...... 12
1.2.1 The protection of cultural heritage in Italy ...... 14
1.3 GLOBALIZATION ...... 16
1.4 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS ...... 18
1.4.1 European Community Treaty and Maastricht Treaty ...... 18
1.4.2 The UNESCO Convention ...... 19
1.4.3 The UNIDROIT Convention ...... 21
1.5 TERRORISM AND CULTURE ...... 23
CHAPTER 2: CULTURAL HERITAGE AND MARKET ...... 26
2.1 THE VALORIZATION OF CULTURAL ASSETS ...... 26
2.2 ART AND THE MARKET ...... 29
2.3 THEFT AND SMUGGLING ...... 37
2.3.1 The Italian situation ...... 42
2.4 THE INFLUENCE OF FAKES IN THE ART MARKET ...... 48
CHAPTER 3: LAW ENFORCEMENT AND PROTECTION ...... 53
3.1 INTERPOL ...... 53
3.1.1 INTERPOL, the CRIGEN/ART form and the Database ...... 54
3.2 THE CARABINIERI COMMAND – CULTURAL HERITAGE PROTECTION 57
3.2.1 The structure and functions of the Carabinieri Command - Cultural Heritage Protection ...... 60
3.3 CONTROL, CONTRAST AND PREVENTION TOOLS ...... 65
3.3.1 The object ID ...... 68
3.4 OPERATIONAL ACTIVITY OF THE CARABINIERI COMMAND – PROTECTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ...... 69
3.5 SOME EXAMPLES OF CULTURAL HERITAGE RECOVERY OPERATIONS 73
CONCLUSION ...... 83
LIST OF LITERATURE ...... 85
LIST OF GRAPHS ...... 95
LIST OF TABLES ...... 96
LIST OF IMAGES ...... 97
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... 99
LIST OF APPENDICES ...... 101
INTRODUCTION
Cultural heritage has always been the focus of enormous attention covering different types of interest, on the one hand it has been exploited, destroyed, falsified, sold and on the other hand protected, preserved, safeguarded and bought. In the thesis it was tried to analyze and consider the aspects that the artistic and cultural heritage cover trying to understand and answer questions about their value and why it is so important to preserve and defend them. It has been tried to evaluate, inserting in different contexts, the function that art objects assume today and to examine the art market and its anomalies, all phenomena that determine high transaction costs and situations of little transparency and how to eliminate these asymmetries it is appropriate to create suitable means that allow those who operate on the art market to understand the characteristics and value of the works of art.
It has been mentioned that the art market today has a global dimension and therefore there is a need for regulation between the different legal, economic and fiscal aspects that affect all the various market operators, but not only that, also from a cultural point of view, it is desirable that the various policies agree in establishing the rules to be adopted.
By studying the characteristics of works of art as exchange goods, the aim was to compare their two intrinsic properties, on the one hand they are a unique and durable good and on the other a form of investment subject to exchange not only in a legitimate market but also in an illicit market. Artistic crimes in the Twenty-first century take on different forms and on the black-market crimes such as the theft of works of art follow their own rules, they are related to the material well-being of those, not only people but also institutions or museums, who seek to increase their social status or their importance through art objects.
It has been highlighted the fate that treating art as any good has led to the misuse of works that have sometimes become a bargaining chip in unclear business, it has also been considered the phenomenon of fakes that are also increasingly difficult to distinguish from the originals and arrive on the market because intermediaries do not carry out the necessary checks and in fact are similar to fraud. There has been talk of how combating illicit trafficking and the counterfeiting of cultural artistic goods and defending cultural heritage is an interest shared by many States that have adopted policies and strategies to protect and combat these phenomena, which in recent years have reached ever greater proportions.
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In my thesis, in particular, is presented the work done in Italy by the Carabinieri Command - Protection of Artistic Heritage (C.C. T.P.C.) which also operates at an international level in collaboration with INTERPOL and the various police forces of other countries that adopt a culturally protectionist system as opposed to that of other countries such as the United Kingdom or the United States that instead promote free trade; the theme is addressed by identifying the difficulty in establishing a balance between the two positions, knowing that this is a difficult and complicated problem to be solved because, in countries like Italy, the idea of property as a sacred and inviolable right is strongly rooted; it was also noted that the opposition between protectionism and liberalism does not reside in a single component but is a set of ideas, relationships and policies not aligned.
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CHAPTER 1 CULTURAL HERITAGE AND PROTECTION
1.1 Definition of cultural heritage
There has always been a lot of confusion about the definition of what cultural heritage is and it is therefore appropriate to make a distinction between the meaning of the term “heritage” which indicates a good that we have inherited and has come to the present thanks bequeathed by generations who have lived before us and the meaning of the term “cultural heritage” which is the transmission of values and traditions that express a shared bond and our belonging to the same community. It describes our history and identity, our link with the past, the present and the future. (E. Franchi, 2017) The complex meaning of cultural heritage can be better clarified if we consider that as a whole it includes: tangible cultural heritage, intangible cultural heritage and natural heritage.
With the definition of tangible cultural heritage are included all the goods that have a defined and stable form, are concrete goods that can be touched, are therefore included: the movable cultural heritage that contains all those goods easily transportable without causing any damage, are mean paintings, sculptures, statues, books and manuscripts, documents, coins and various objects; the immovable cultural heritage, which includes all the artistic assets that cannot be moved from the place where they are produced, so this category includes all architectural works such as buildings or archaeological sites as well as everything that is structurally linked to these places such as frescoes or historical monuments; and the underwater cultural heritage, which includes all the archaeological relics found at sea, as well as the underwater cities. (F. Morante, 2018) In these different types of heritage we can find objects or places relevant to the archaeology, architecture, history, art, science and technology of a given culture. (Ann Marie Sullivan, 2016)
The definition of intangible cultural heritage, on the other hand, refers to all goods that do not have a defined and stable form, cannot be touched and only manifest themselves when they occur. This heritage is therefore made up of the ways, appearance and formal rules that operate in a particular cultural climate. These consist of values, customs and traditions, language, arts and knowledge passed on from generation to generation within a community. (E. Franchi, 2017)
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The definition of natural heritage refers to the landscape, the natural environment, including flora and fauna (biodiversity) and geological elements (geodiversity). (A. M. Sullivan, 2016) Landscape assets that include these natural places of exceptional historical and aesthetic value are immovable assets linked to a particular place and therefore deserve the same protection as that reserved for assets that have been created by man; this category includes volcanoes, rivers and lakes, forests, mountains, etc. The natural heritage also includes cultural landscapes, geographical areas that are a combination of human creativity with nature.
The works of art that make up the cultural heritage, from a structural point of view, are an instrument of communication and are made to be seen, read and listened from everyone, thus assuming their autonomy thus becoming a sensitive representation. (C. Gabbani, 2017)
Although all definitions of cultural heritage have elements in common, it is very difficult to reach a single definition, but the expression generally indicates: “Objects that embody or express or evoke the culture; principally archaeological, ethnographic and historical objects, works of art and architecture, but the category can be extended to include almost anything made or changed by man». (L. Casini, 2012; J.H. Merryman, 1990)
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1.2 The protection of cultural heritage in Europe
Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states that: “Everyone has the right to participate freely in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share scientific progress and its benefits”. This definition makes us understand how important it is to respect and safeguard all cultural heritage through national laws and international treaties. All European countries consider their cultural heritage to be a spokesperson for great national values, a mirror that reflects the identity of a people and identifies it as such, but if we consider all the heritage, we can see the contribution that all populations have given, are giving and will probably give to the culture of the world.
Unfortunately, irreparable damage to the world culture and cultural heritage of the various countries is caused by the illicit trade in artifacts and cultural goods, by the looting of archaeological sites and by the destruction of historical buildings and monuments (E. Franchi, 2017); because of these actions it is more difficult to link archaeological finds in their original context and in the future the entire civilization will be deprived of the right to enjoy the works of art that are part of its history.
The phenomenon of the protection of cultural heritage has very ancient roots that have been incorporated into current national and supranational laws. If we return back in time we can find examples of protection and conservation of cultural property, in fact already the ancient Romans established that a work of art could be considered part of the heritage of a community even if it was privately owned, given its extraordinary value could not be taken away from the rest of the people who had to be able to enjoy it freely, for example the sculptures that decorated the facade of a private building could not be removed because they could be seen by everyone and had, therefore, acquired a common value. (E. Franchi, 2017) It is incredible that these concepts from a time so far from ours, are still so topical that we can find them, perhaps expressed in different words, in modern systems, which makes us understand that another aspect of the protection of cultural heritage is the difficult relationship between public and private interests and rights.
Europe is not in favor of speculative trade in cultural goods and applies regulations to both imports and exports.
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To stop imports of illegally exported cultural goods from their country of origin, on July 13, 2017, the European Commission presented new rules and the main arguments of this proposed import law, common to all European countries, cover a wide range of objects including archaeological finds, ancient parchments, the remains of historical monuments, works of art, collections and antiquities that are at least 250 years old at the time of importation, in addition the competent authorities of each country of the European Union will have to issue import licenses especially for those goods such as archaeological objects, parts of monuments, ancient manuscripts or books that are known to be more at risk. For other categories of goods, to ensure that the goods have been legally exported, importers will have to submit a signed declaration or an affidavit. Customs authorities will also have the power to seize and store goods when it is not possible to prove that cultural assets have been legally exported. (European Union, 2017)
On 1 January 1993, Europe created the internal market, and this led to the abolition of internal borders. While the free movement of goods has been a positive factor for the economy of the European States, it has also created a serious problem regarding the export of cultural heritage. The member states of the European Union have not been able to prevent their national treasures from illegally leaving Europe by crossing another Member State.
Two legislative articles have been developed to combat and prevent illicit trafficking in cultural goods: The Council Regulation (EC) N° 116/2009 on the export of cultural goods ensures uniform controls at the external borders of the European Union by linking the exports to the presentation of an export license obtained by the competent authorities of the Member States and valid throughout the territory of the European Union. European Parliament and Council Directive 2014/60/EU on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State has introduced provisions allowing Member States to ensure the return to their territory of cultural objects removed in violation of national measures.
At international level, the fight against illicit trafficking in cultural goods is regulated by various instruments, the most important of which is the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illegal Importation, Exportation and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Heritage. This Convention has, among other things, the purpose of allowing the international community to protect cultural property against damage, theft, illegal excavations, illegal importation, exportation and transfer of ownership and illicit
13 trafficking. 25 out of 28 European Member States are Parties to the Convention. (European Union, 2017)
1.2.1 The protection of cultural heritage in Italy
The Italian laws for the protection of cultural heritage are particularly strict, the ethical and legal principles of conservation have a very deep root that begins long before the concept of “nation” was operating in Europe. The rules imposed by the governments of the pre-united Italian states were mostly aimed at regulating and limiting the market; only with the French Revolution did we finally have a notion of national heritage that slowly became part of the post-restoration Italian states.
From 1909 to 2004 the “Italian system” for the protection of cultural heritage and landscape evolved into a complex public organization whose central point is the Italian Constitution (1948), Article 9 of the Italian Constitution states that: “The Republic promotes the development of culture and scientific and technical research. It protects the passage and the historical and artistic heritage of the nation”; for the first time one of the fundamental principles was “the protection of the landscape and the historical and artistic heritage of the Nation”. (S. Settis, 2016)
The conservation of the Italian cultural heritage is very difficult to sustain because Italy is the nation with the largest cultural heritage considered important at world level, it has been estimated that 60% of the world cultural heritage worthy of preservation is located on the Italian territory. (Anon, 1999) Precisely for this reason, Italy was one of the first States to create its own Ministry of Culture that deals with issues related to the protection and restoration of objects and buildings of historical importance. (Bodo, 2013)
In order to effectively protect its cultural heritage and seeking to generate public revenue, Italy relies on various institutions and the support of non-governmental organizations. Understanding the enormous importance that cultural assets play in the country’s economic growth, Italy protects its cultural heritage through various policies that seek to transform cultural resources into resources for economic growth and cultural development; according to the “Public Works and Financial Resources Management
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Program” the State has created laws that allow individuals and private companies to invest in cultural heritage. This program is indispensable for the Italian State because it attracts both domestic and foreign investors whose capital is invested in cultural assets leading both public and private development.
Being a member of UNESCO is very important because this organization protects sites and monuments considered of considerable importance for the historical culture of the world and Italy can use capital of the World Heritage Found because 54 of its cultural sites have the requirements to be included in the World Heritage List of UNESCO.
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1.3 Globalization
The term “cultural heritage” generally evokes the idea of a single society and the communication between its members, but cultural boundaries are not necessarily well defined. Although artists, writers, scientists, artisans and musicians come from different eras and cultures, it is possible to notice that their works are influenced by the techniques and methodologies used by their predecessors. That is why it is very important that the cultural heritage handed down to us is preserved and passed on to future generations so that they can learn and benefit from the discoveries of our ancestors.
Thanks to the cultural heritage it is possible to see that in the world there are various cultures and with its understanding we can hope to achieve mutual respect between the different cultures that make up our universe. (E. Franchi, 2017) It is possible to reconstruct our past, touching it with our own hands, only through the objects of human history that have been handed down to us and according to classical civilizations the preservation of tradition is essential because it must be handed down intact to the generation of the future.
The international conventions on the protection of cultural heritage implemented by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) aim to encourage the understanding of different cultures and the importance of international cooperation. The World Heritage Convention was adopted on 17 December 1975 and the World Heritage List was created in 1978. This list has grown rapidly over the following decades and now includes more than 1000 sites in 167 different countries. Thanks to the efforts and funding of UNESCO, sites around the world are preserved and restored.
In addition, there is also a World Heritage List in Danger, which includes all sites at risk due to pollution, natural hazards or other serious problems. These sites will be included in this list until specific measures are taken to solve the problem in question. It is also important to note that there are persistent threats to World Heritage Sites worldwide, such as climate change, urbanization and natural disasters. These serious problems are difficult to resolve and continue to compromise the preservation of the World’s Cultural Heritage.
In order to achieve international cooperation, the countries of the European Union and the European Commission should:
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- encourage intercultural dialogue through projects, awareness-raising activities and exchanges of good practice inside and outside the European Union both for cultural professionals and young people;
- support the development of multilingualism and intercultural competences;
- promote the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions implemented by UNESCO in 2005;
- promote European cultural activities, goods and services outside the European Union, as well as the international mobility of European cultural professionals;
- contribute to combat counterfeiting, piracy and the theft and trafficking of cultural goods at international level;
- protect, preserve and promote cultural heritage. (European Union Law)
With Article 6 of the TFEU (Treaty on the functioning of the European Union 2016), the European Union is implementing a strategy which, based on the communication, proposes stronger and more effective international cultural relations (i.e. the exchange of ideas, points of view and opinions between different cultures) to support the European Commission’s priority of making the European Union a stronger global participant, a better international partner and enabling Europe to contribute more to sustainable growth. It proposes a model for cultural cooperation between European countries, national cultural organizations and public and private bodies that use “cultural diplomacy” to promote a global order based on peace, freedom of expression, the rule of law, mutual understanding and respect for fundamental values.
Although cultural policy is primarily the responsibility of individual European countries, Article 6 TFEU states that the European Union may play a role in supporting, coordinating and integrating the activities of European countries in this field. Culture plays an important role in the European Union’s foreign policy, where cultural cooperation contrasts stereotypes and prejudices and dialogue can prevent conflicts and promote reconciliation. It helps to respond to global challenges such as the integration of refugees, the fight against violent radicalization and the protection of the world’s cultural heritage. (European Commission JOIN, 2016)
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1.4 International Conventions
1.4.1 European Community Treaty and Maastricht Treaty
The EC Treaty (European Community) is the fundamental legislative text of the European Community which contains the principles of the Community institutions and the organizational rules of the Community; regulations are legislative measures of general scope and when they enter into force, the Member States are obliged to observe their content. At the European level, an advanced level of protection against illicit trafficking in cultural goods was achieved even before the Maastricht Treaty introduced a special title dedicated to culture; as a result of the concern of some Member States, who feared that with the single market and the abolition of internal borders, the artistic heritage would suffer an impoverishment, the protection of cultural goods has become an important necessity. With the 1993 Maastricht Treaty for the first time in European legislation, the cultural aspect became of primary and collective interest and cultural cooperation between States became an officially recognized objective.
The European Union’s cultural initiatives, which previously had only a fragmentary character, began in 1993 to encourage specific multiannual cultural programs aimed at enhancing, supporting and protecting Europe’s cultural heritage. Various programs are implemented, such as the “Kaleidoscope” (1996-1999), which aims to support artistic and cultural creation and cooperation activities with a European dimension, the “Ariane” project (1997-1999), which supports the book and literature sector, and the “Raphael” project (1997- 2000), which aims to complete the policies of the Member States in the field of cultural heritage; and finally, the “Culture 2000” project, which brings together the three previous programs in a single programming and funding instrument. The European Union has also encouraged the construction of cultural infrastructures as part of its regional development policy to enhance Europe’s cultural heritage and to raise public awareness by giving citizens better access to it. (A. Fantin, 2005)
With the Maastricht Treaty, Community action acquired the task of “integrating the action of the Member States in the conservation and safeguarding of cultural heritage of European importance” (art.151) and the interventions of the European institutions were developed both at the level of action programs in cultural policies and in the recovery of illegally exported goods inside and outside the European Union. EEC (European Economic 18
Community) Regulation 3911/92 provides for a prior check on the exit of cultural goods from the European territory, verifying that the goods are accompanied by an export license and provides that the authorization may be refused if the cultural goods have a historical or archaeological value for the Member State to which they belong.
With the Directive 93/7/EEC, the European Community also provided itself with an instrument for the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a State. Each Member State must have central authorities which must identify assets transferred from one State to another without complying with the procedures and limits laid down by the territory of origin, communicate their discovery, cooperate in the physical preservation of the property and initiate the return procedure. (G. Miserocchi, 2009)
1.4.2 The UNESCO Convention
The acronym UNESCO means United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNESCO is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that was created thanks to a constitution signed on November 16, 1945. This constitution entered into force in 1946 and it was intended to establish international cooperation in the fields of education, science and culture. UNESCO’s permanent headquarters are in Paris, France.
Because of the Second World War many schools, libraries and museums were destroyed throughout Europe and at first UNESCO had focused on their reconstruction. Since then, UNESCO has carried out activities aimed to facilitate, assist and complement the efforts made by Member States to reduce illiteracy and make free education more accessible to all citizens. It is also proposed to create the conditions for a dialogue between civilizations, cultures and populations based on respect for shared common values and through intercultural dialogue, education, science, culture, communication and information the world can achieve global visions of sustainable development which include observance of human rights, mutual respect and poverty reduction. Among other things, UNESCO organizes conferences and provides compensation and exchange services to increase and encourage the free exchange of ideas and knowledge between different cultures.
In addition to supporting educational and scientific programs, UNESCO also seeks to protect the cultural heritage and natural environment that are important for humanity. In 1972, 19
UNESCO sponsored an international agreement to create a special list of cultural and natural sites that, because of their global importance, should have government protection. (K. Mingst, 2019) The criteria by which goods can be entered on the List serve to ensure that candidate goods have an “outstanding universal value” that justifies double protection, both domestic and international. The list includes all goods that meet the criterion of authenticity, that represent masterpieces of man’s creative genius, that have had a considerable influence on the development of architecture and the monumental arts, that constitute a unique and exceptional testimony of a vanished civilization or cultural tradition, that are an example of a certain type of human construction or settlement. This document provides a framework for international cooperation for the conservation and protection of cultural treasures and natural areas around the world. (J. Wallenfeldt, 2019)
Three types of sites can be identified: cultural, natural and mixed. Cultural heritage sites include hundreds of historical buildings and town sites, archaeological sites and works of monumental sculpture or painting. Natural heritage sites are limited to those natural areas that provide exceptional examples of Earth’s record of life or its geological processes, contain rare or extraordinarily beautiful natural phenomena, habitats for rare or endangered animals or plants. Mixed heritage sites contain significant elements of both natural and cultural heritage. (J. Wallenfeldt, 2019) Since 2018, there are 1092 World Heritage Sites: 845 Cultural Heritage Sites, 209 Natural Heritage Sites and 38 Mixed Properties Sites, in 167 countries. All these sites are considered of considerable importance to the international community.
There is also a UNESCO Convention, which entered into force in 2001, called the Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, which helps states parties to improve the protection of their underwater cultural heritage. UNESCO has also begun to outline aspects of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of mankind that can be recognized as masterpieces of human creativity. Article 15 of the Covenant of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was part of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, sought to outline the principles according to which cultural heritage can be recognized as a fundamental human right.
The most important international documents and bodies in the field of cultural heritage usually include:
- The Athens Charter on the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage of 1931;
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- The Roerich Pact for the Protection of Culture of 1935 (Roerich (1874-1947) was a Russian archaeologist, painter, anthropologist, poet, diplomat, set designer and costume designer);
- The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954 (The Hague Convention contains a definition of cultural heritage item that was adopted by some national laws);
- The Venice Charter concerning the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites of 1964;
- The Barcelona Charter on the Maritime Vessel Preservation of 2002;
- The ICOMOS: International Council on Monuments and Sites;
- The International Committee of the Blue Shield Managing natural and manmade disasters;
- The International Institute for Conservation.
At the General Conference of UNESCO, which meets every two years to establish the programs of activities, the budget of the agency and the amount of contributions to be paid by the Member States to the agency, each Member State has the right to one vote. The Executive Council of UNESCO, elected by the General Conference, is composed of 58 members and generally meets twice per year to direct and advise the work of the agency. The Secretariat is the heart of the agency and is led by the Director General, who is appointed every six years by the General Conference. There are about 200 national commissions, composed of local experts, which act as governmental advisory bodies in their respective states. Most of the work carried out by UNESCO takes place in special committees and commissions with the participation of experts. (K. Mingst, 2019)
1.4.3 The UNIDROIT Convention
Around the mid-1980s, the Secretary General of UNESCO invited UNIDROIT (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law), an intergovernmental organization
21 based in Rome, to draw up a study aimed at systematizing the rules governing the return of stolen cultural property, with particular attention to the legal aspects of a private nature. The UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Property becomes an indispensable tool for the recovery of cultural property even if it is located across borders due to theft or export in violation of the domestic law of the requesting country. The purpose of the Convention is to ensure a fair and transparent exchange of unique and irreplaceable goods.
This Convention, adopted in Rome in 1995, complements the 1970 UNESCO Convention and aims to reduce the illegal trade in cultural goods and to increase the number of goods subjects to its provisions to extend the right of return of stolen goods. (I. Caracciolo, 1998)
Stolen property must be returned, theft is a crime against property and is universally punishable and as such prosecuted by all States, unlawfully exported cultural property must be returned, however, only if it meets special requirements and conditions of the Convention. The requesting state must prove that the export of the cultural object has certain cultural and scientific interests for the country and therefore the export itself is not enough to demand its return. The UNIDROIT Convention first protects the original owner and the bona fide owner who must return the cultural object is entitled to fair compensation. Cultural property that is part of a public collection, monument, archaeological site or intended for the sacred, traditional or ritual use of an indigenous or tribal community is not eligible.
The Convention considerably improves the possibilities of restitution, including both civil law provisions and private law issues (C. Manhart, 2012), establishes a minimum set of standardized rules, these rules are directly applicable, and this means that the provisions contained in the Convention are an immediate legal basis for invoking the right of return of cultural objects before internal courts or judicial authorities. Unlike the UNESCO Convention, the UNIDROIT Convention is self-executing, because it does not need to be implemented by means of a law. Thirty-three countries have so far signed the UNIDROIT Convention and the States parties must implement all the provisions of the Convention. (A. L. Levine, 2011); this creates a uniform law with a common and comprehensive regulation. (Z. Veres, 2014)
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1.5 Terrorism and culture
The 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict explicitly prohibits the deliberate targeting of culturally significant objects during armed conflicts. However, this destruction, to assert power and ethnic supremacy, often becomes a target of war. During the Bosnian conflict (1992-1995), for example, Bosnian cultural property and historical sites (Bosnian Muslims) were intentionally destroyed as part of the ethnic cleansing campaign conducted by the Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb armies. Unfortunately, this was also repeated in 2001, when the Taliban implemented a campaign against non-Islamic artifacts by destroying the Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan.
Image 1: Before and after the Taliban’s distraction of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan.
Source: Corriere della Sera, 2001.
Starting in 2015, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) extended its control over the Middle East, bringing such destruction at an unprecedented rate, to maintain their military campaign they have also destroyed significant parts of ancient cities such as Niniveh and Hatra in Iraq. Over the centuries, through the sharing of customs, traditions, beliefs and religions, architectural, historical and artistic values have shaped the unity of peoples and identified them as a nation; it is therefore important to protect this intrinsic value that has been handed down through the artistic and cultural heritage from illicit trafficking. Stopping this illegal trade is indispensable not only because it is an illicit source of income, but also 23 because, if we consider an area where there has been a war, for example, the systematic destruction of historical heritage endangers the reconciliation and stabilization of the people who have suffered this devastating injustice. In Syria and Iraq, historical memories are part of everyday life, people live in ancient cities, pray in historical mosques and churches, shop in centuries-old markets and this common historical identity is fundamental to re-establishing national unity. The director general of the Iraqi museums tells that in 1258 during the Mongolian conquest of Baghdad “the river tigers became red for the blood shed by the thousands of dead and black for the ink of the thousands of manuscripts” but he maintains that this is nothing compared to what ISIS is doing today. (M. Pompili, 2015)
ISIS not only erases the historical heritage, it also uses it as a source of income to finance its war, the smuggling of works of art from Syria and Iraq is increasing to compensate for the drop-in revenue from the sale of oil. Initially, the stolen works of art were dug by the local populations who, after having sworn allegiance to the Islamic State, obtained free licenses and each piece found was paid 20% more than the value; now the situation has been reversed, the Islamic terrorists demand that the excavators sell to them everything they find, paying 20% less than the estimated market value and then resell the objects with the help of intermediaries. The stolen objects are taken out of the country and transferred to Turkey or Lebanon, to pass these objects across the border are used several stratagems, such as they are hidden in trucks of food or between the columns of refugees. The works are often smuggled into eastern countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, and from there into western Europe, especially Germany and Switzerland. One route that is gaining importance, however, is the one that passes through Southeast Asia, the works are transferred by sea to Singapore and Thailand, where customs controls are less accurate and the transfer from these places to the West, Europe and the United States, arouses less suspicion and helps to hide the origin of the objects. (C. Scaldaferri, 2017)
Despite the 1954 Hague Convention and its Additional Protocols, destruction and trafficking of cultural property persist in many regional conflicts. The international community considers that, because of the recent events perpetrated by terrorist groups, it is necessary to take preventive measures and to react more decisively and with the help of UNESCO, INTERPOL and their main partners prohibits Member States from trading in illegally exported Iraqi and Syrian cultural goods and United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2253 (2015) also reaffirms the same prohibitions.
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At their own risk, despite the shift of battles into Syrian civil war, some experts in collaboration with UNESCO and other international organizations, have implemented work plans in an attempt to save and safeguard the sites affected by ISIS. During the Seventieth General Assembly of the United Nations, the initiative “Protecting cultural heritage - an imperative for humanity: acting together against the destruction and trafficking of cultural property by terrorist groups and organized crime” was inaugurated, the campaign involves UNESCO, INTERPOL, UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), the Command of the Italian Carabinieri and Jordan. The protection of cultural heritage is essential to support a peaceful society, prevent violent extremism and eliminate economic support for terrorism. It is essential for the International Community to cooperate in investigations and legal procedures, to strengthen its capacities and to implement specialized training to achieve the objectives set for the protection of cultural heritage.
The actions of ISIS were defined by Irina Bokova, former Director General of UNESCO, as a war crime and with the words “we must respond to this criminal chaos, which destroys culture, with more culture” tried to urge the global community to reflect on the preservation of the world cultural heritage. (Irina Bokova, 2015)
The devastation in crisis areas “must lead to awareness of the need to provide for a cultural component in the peace and security missions of the United Nations and the European Union… The protection of archaeological and artistic heritage that are increasingly subject to destruction and looting by terrorists must be at the center of the agenda of the International Community”. (On. D. Franceschini, 2015)
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CHAPTER 2 CULTURAL HERITAGE AND MARKET
2.1 The valorization of cultural assets
In the past, cultural heritage was seen as a single asset to be defended and preserved and was considered in a context separate from everything else; today its role takes on a more complex aspect than in the past, in fact, in addition to its already undisputed historical and cultural importance, its economic aspect also becomes relevant. All the different aspects that it assumes provoke complex and contrasting discussions, economists underline the factors that often art historians, scholars, anthropologists neglect, such as costs, the effect on investment, employment, tourism, government subsidies, etc. The resources invested in this area lead to considerable benefits for employment and income and it is therefore important to assess the costs and benefits for economic growth and development. (A. Klamer, 2001)
Artistic goods have always been judged as an immaterial cultural heritage, especially by the population in which these riches reside; no one denies that their meaning is part of a past that transmits its heritage to future generations, but the economy does not want to erase the important historical-cultural concept, but rather tries to take it into account in order to better define their economic value. In this new vision, the artistic-cultural heritage becomes a fundamental element for reproducible services; through the promotion of a sustainable model of social and economic growth, it is significant to identify, evaluate, produce and provide the services that can be developed by this expansion.
Many disadvantaged cities, having understood the importance of heritage, have incorporated a cultural component into their redevelopment strategies, such as the restoration of an old historical center, the creation of a museum, the revival of local craftsmanship. In addition to restoring value to the environment, this cultural development has created new jobs and at the same time consolidated the role and functions of local authorities. This added value is even more important when one considers that redevelopment, as well as being an economic aspect, leads to the consolidation of certain common values and references that are typical of social ties.
Considering this point of view, the European Union aims at international cooperation that favors the fight against illegal trafficking in cultural goods and their protection; the restoration, conservation and promotion of artistic goods are decisive factors for economic
26 growth as they attract cultural tourism. This tourism produces an income that is also distributed in many other sectors such as the hotel industry, the transport industry, crafts and leads to a multiplication of profits. (X. Greffe, 1990)
Until now, we have talked about the value that cultural goods have if associated with the development of society as a community, but we must also consider the value that they have as objects in their own right. Most of the artistic assets that we consider the most valuable today derive from the cultural heritage of the past and the more we know its history, who it was made by, who it was commissioned from and why, the more it takes on value. Undoubtedly another very important element is also their state of preservation. In the artistic- cultural sector, antiquarians, gallerists, merchants and collectors seek, buy and restore these objects with the aim of reselling or collecting them; these people perform a very valuable function, as well as underlining the importance that these objects have preserve them by avoiding their dispersion or destruction.
Even though in our times everything is quantified by considering everything to be estimable and marketable, for these goods that contain the customs and traditions of the past, their economic value is very special and difficult to calculate. The rarity, the use that has been made of them, the conservation are just some of the elements that make an object of the past worth more than its new equivalent. If then these objects, such as paintings, statues, sculptures also have an “artistic quid” their value becomes immeasurable and the fact that they were created after others is no longer so important, for example the value of works made by artists of the Nineteenth century is higher than others made in the Sixteenth century. (F. Forte, 2004)
Another very important and not insignificant aspect to consider is what cultural goods have at national, European and international level, they are in fact subject to legal regulation. The legal barriers that operate between the different states mean that there is no homogeneous world market for artistic and cultural goods, on the contrary, two opposing market lines have been formed, one dirigist and centralist to which most of the European Union countries belong: Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and one liberalist consisting of Great Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and Canada. This subdivision is due to the fact that the ruling countries are those that more than others have produced the art because they have a
27 cultural history thousands of years old, but the main focus of this protection is that in the past they have been subject to real plundering.
Liberal countries have a modest cultural heritage and a strong demand for artistic goods, so it is in their interest to promote exports. Great Britain is a bit different because although it has a considerable cultural heritage, it also has a liberalist concept as regards the development of international markets.
In Europe, after the Maastricht Treaty, the rules of free trade in the Community area apply, but for artistic and cultural goods the Treaty is an exception. Article 30 states that “prohibitions or restrictions on imports, exports and transit justified on grounds of the protection of national treasures possessing artistic, historical or archaeological value may continue to apply”. For extra-Community exports, the rules are even stricter.
Even if they belong to private persons and they can be sold or purchased privately, cultural artistic goods are still considered public goods because they carry an artistic or cultural message; this value cannot be sold, it belongs to the community, it is part of the intangible heritage of humanity. Establishing a value is therefore not easy, opinion leaders and experts try to take into account all the factors and variants that an artistic and cultural good brings within it in order to better determine an economic value.
The undisputed value of cultural artistic goods, if mankind in its irresponsibility does not destroy them but rather preserves them, will always be that of being the bearer of an immense treasure: the testimony of the time spent by man on Earth.
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2.2 Art and the market
When we talk about economic value we usually think about the price of a thing and its exchange value. Supply and demand bring together the whole chain of the production process: technology, labor, financial capital, preferences, etc.; according to the laws of the market, goods must be produced for exchange and consumption. About cultural goods, however, this is not the case, the evaluation does not derive only from an economic estimate because they contain within them a great variety of spiritual, symbolic, aesthetic and artistic meanings. One of the aspects not to be neglected when we are talking about works of art is the fact that, unlike other goods, their value does not depreciate with use and even when a person claims ownership, in reality does not own it entirely but shares it with the whole world.
It is often said that art is priceless because artistic goods have an intrinsic value and the economic value associated with them may be inadequate; there is no answer when it comes to valorization applied to cultural heritage, in fact, defining the value of an artistic asset can not only relate to the monetary aspect but must also take into account the cultural component, the primary purpose should be to evaluate what it can offer to the community, but in estimating the art and define what should or should not be taken into consideration one enters the field of personal opinions based on the idea that everyone has of cultural heritage. However, in reality these goods possess an economic value because since ancient times they have been sold and traded on the market by the authors or their heirs and bought by people who love art or aim for economic purposes. If people invested in art only for cultural purposes, there would be no market linked to investment for economic gain. When a cultural good is offered for sale, it is invested by the characteristics of the market, it is evaluated and compared with other goods and its evaluation, even if not negotiable in social terms, takes on a purely commercial aspect. (A. Klamer, 2001)
In the last twenty years, the art market has grown enormously, becoming an increasingly complex and articulated sector of economic investment. Originally, the art market consisted of only two main aspects, the supply made by artists and the demand made by patrons, nobles, bankers, clergymen who wanted to embellish their palaces, churches or celebrate their deeds. The value in this basic form of market was determined by the intersection of supply and demand and the agreed price was calculated on the basis of
29 individual artistic production. The supply depended on the wealth, prestige and tastes of the client, the demand on the materials used and, above all, on the skill and fame of the artist.
With the passing of time, the market has evolved, it has equipped itself with different and complex institutions that in turn have created new professional figures operating within the world of art.
The origin of art goes back to the Palaeolithic with rock paintings but we do not know when the figure of the artist begins to be considered a real profession, perhaps it has turns into a profession when art becomes an object of exchange and the author is required to specific techniques and skills. The artist obtained a real recognition in the Seventeenth century when the boutiques were replaced by academies and his work began to stand out and be separated from that of the craftsman. Currently the roles that the artist plays are many: a cultural role related to the aesthetic aspect, a social role that highlights the aspects of our society, a political role as a complaint and an economic role because an artist trying to sell one of his products becomes an entrepreneur of himself and also puts on the market a work with a brand.
Collecting starts when artists begin to have a name and their works become precious objects. The collector replaces the figure of the patron but only in part because there is no longer just an intellectual and aesthetic interest. With the industrial revolution and the birth of the bourgeoisie the motivations have changed, owning a work of art becomes a status symbol to show to others. Today, collecting works of art also has an economic component because the purchase is seen from the point of view of investment.
The art dealer is a figure that began to spread around the Fifteenth century, his business consists of buying works of art, sometimes directly from the artist, and then resell them on the market with the hope of obtaining a profit. This profession remained marginal until the Seventeenth century, when this type of activity became increasingly influential, creating a secondary market within the system where those who needed to sell always found a buyer, even if at a lower price than the market price.
Auction houses are institutions founded in the Eighteenth century in England, were specialized in the sale of fine books, but soon began to deal with paintings. Currently, the main auction houses on the market are British, Christie’s and Sotheby’s; in 2012 the two auction houses produced a worldwide turnover of more than 70%, but this estimate does not
30 include Chinese transactions. The auctioneers operate exclusively on the secondary market, determining the artists’ quotations and making profits through a mark-up on the transactions (which vary according to the final amount) borne by both the sellers and the buyers. The charge applied to the buyer is generally public, while the commission charged to the seller is usually kept secret. In order to avoid conflicts of interest, the auctioneers openly declare themselves on the side of the seller, to whom, in addition to the sale, they offer a series of services which go from the appraisal of the work to the solvency of the buyers, guaranteeing also that the banned price is not lower than a certain threshold (guaranteed minimum price).
The minimum guaranteed price leads to an unrealistic index of the values auctioned because they are often subject to speculative transactions. Big collectors support an upward game by conditioning the selling prices to keep high the prices on which the value of their portfolio is calculated. Today there are several databases such as Artprice and Artnet, which contain in real time all the quotes of artists beaten in different auctions worldwide and they are used in the market as parameters for the evaluation of works. The buyers of the auction houses are mostly collectors, art dealers and museums who, competing for the works of art of a given artist, trigger a fight to raise the prices that the auction houses themselves try to encourage by offering loans naturally with high interest rates. (M. Guenzi, 2014)
In 2002, the European Commission imposed a fine of € 20.4 million (6% of its turnover) on Sotheby’s for colluding between 1993 and the beginning of 2000 with its main rival Christie’s in relation to customer commissions. Christie’s spared the fine for being the first to provide evidence of this crime (W. Bennett, D. Haworth, 2002) Despite all this, the auction market is one of the most transparent and effective compared to that managed by other types of intermediaries. Auctioneers tend to advertise their works, especially if they are of great value, through international communications, thus making the market a global one. (M. Guenzi, 2014)
The museums were founded to counter the dispersion of the artistic and cultural heritage, already in the Eighteenth century the papacy established public museums providing the necessary funds for the purchase of works of art. Thus, the ecclesiastical museums Capitolino and Pio-Clementino were born. (R. Conforti, 2001) The role of the museums is articulated, from the economic point of view together with collectors and investors constitute
31 the demand for works of art but are also the major providers of art service giving the opportunity to a wide audience to admire the works of art on display.
Galleries are institutions that spread in the mid-Nineteenth century in Paris, at that time considered the world center of art, where alongside the works of academic artists began to make their way the artists of the avant-garde. These artists who were excluded from the official circuits tried to spread their art through alternative channels and were helped by people who organized events for them, and in 1855 they exhibited their art for the first time at the Salon de Réfusés. This led to the creation of the figure of the gallery owner who played an active role in promoting the artist both commercially and culturally. Unlike auction houses, galleries tend to favor buyers, prices are lower, negotiations are more reserved and if a work remains unsold it is not discriminated as in auction houses. Galleries have a portfolio that is based on their preferences and not on a time-based marketing principle (first coming first served) that characterizes the most advanced markets. By managing their business in this way, they manage to be monopolists or oligopolists and obtain higher prices than perfect competition, while at the same time implementing a moral suasion by banning speculators. The galleries also have waiting lists that allow them to create and select an exclusive clientele and through the “placement” they manage to place the most significant pieces in private collections or museums, thus giving more visibility to the work and value to the artist. (M. Guenzi, 2014)
The exhibition phenomenon originated in Europe, the first fair was made in 1967 in Cologne. In 1970 the Art Basel (Switzerland) was born and today it represents the most important fair event in the world. There are many fairs that have opened in Europe, in Italy the most important are in Turin and Bologna. The function of the fairs is commercial, they are places where many institutions, such as galleries or auction houses, exhibit their works of art in the stands assigned to them by an organizational committee. The added value that characterizes the fairs is to offer a wide range of works of art easily comparable both visually and in terms of price. It is also an excellent opportunity to learn about the market trend, the prices reached by artists and the evolution of taste and fashion.
Art brokers are professional figures who help artists, galleries, museums, collectors, art dealers, auction houses in the search for a counterparty. They are freelancers who perform a real brokerage function, bringing together supply and demand by offering the parties a range
32 of services such as legal, tax and insurance advice. The figure of the art broker has developed in parallel with the figure of the art advisor, a professional who advises collectors, museums and institutional investors on how best to orient themselves in relation to their investment activities. Compared to art brokers, their work is supply-side oriented. These two professions are linked to market inefficiencies, especially in the field of information, and their role is precisely to reduce the information asymmetries that are created between seller and buyer. Art brokers are required to have legal knowledge and negotiating skills, while art advisors are required to have a thorough knowledge of art history and the economic and financial aspects of the investment. Some advisors, the art bankers, carry out their profession on behalf of institutional investors. Institutional investors are mostly credit institutions and large companies that continuously carry out a business of buying and selling works of art, their goal is to diversify the portfolio and the establishment of a real collection whose value increases over time; they are a positive factor because they increase the liquidity of the market and make it more transparent and efficient. (M. Guenzi, 2014)
Art market intermediaries are generally highly specialized, know how to value the goods and preferences of their buyers and know the characteristics that give economic value to what they buy or sell. These values are not occasional, they follow certain laws and in order to understand the mechanism it is necessary to distinguish between three types of market:
- in the imperfect bilateral monopoly market, the buyer has a thorough knowledge of the good and the market while the seller only knows the history of the object in his possession. It is bilateral because there is one party that sells and one that buys, it is simultaneously imperfect because there may be more than one potential buyer and the price depends not only on the contractual ability of the parties but also on the need to sell of the person who owns the object.
- The market of monopolistic competition is aimed at a very large audience or clientele and involves a plurality of operators on both sides, buy and sell; usually the price tends to move towards the minimum level.
- In the auction market there is perfect competition, the good is obtained by those who offer the highest price, the price tends to move to the maximum value. (F. Forte, 2004)
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The art market has become a considerable sector of economic investment and the increase in demand for cultural goods can be linked to the consequent growth of the illegal market for works of art; this growth has also been possible thanks to the almost total lack of professional controls on private and institutional buyers (such as museums and art galleries). The enormous interest that has been created around artistic goods is undoubtedly due to the increase in interest in the field of art but also, and above all, to the better economic conditions of a growing number of people in rich countries who use these goods as a safe haven for investment.
Art has always attracted criminals, not because they are fascinated by it, but because art can be marketed. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999) This type of market is supported by those who cannot have the same objects through the legitimate market. In the case of archaeological finds, for example, the objects sold on the black market come from clandestine excavations that were then stolen across the border and sold by merchants to collectors and curators of museums interested in this type of acquisition. Usually these markets operate in those countries where the sale of ancient works of art is legal and does not require a lot of documentation. When you buy an art object in theory you should respect certain rules, such as ascertaining its origin, in practice instead the buyers interested in such objects do not do so because they know that any knowledge of the crime would result in legal action. (S. Beltrametti, 2013)
Despite all this, however, from an exclusively economic point of view, the art market is not damaged by the illegal trade because the theft itself simply involves a transfer of ownership. As with all illegal activities, it is impossible to understand how much the global illicit trade affects the cultural goods market, however, considering the legal market for cultural goods as a benchmark for comparison it can be argued that 83% of art objects from all over the world are traded in the United States (39%), China (22%) and Great Britain (22%).
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Graph 1: World trade in art objects.
17% United States
39% China
22% Great Britain
Rest of the world 22%
Source: Graph based on the data collected from Adnkronos (2018), own graph elaboration.
According to the “Monumental Fight” report of the Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance, between 2010 and 2014 the countries bordering Syria and Iraq had a significant increase in exports of works of art: 129% for Turkey, 466% for Israel and 676% for Lebanon. This increase in the trafficking of antiques from war zones is due to the criminal activities of terrorist groups operating in these conflict zones. (Adnkronos, 2018)
Graph 2: Increased exports of works of art from countries bordering Syria and Iraq between 2010 and 2014.
800% 676% 700% 600% 500% 466% 400% 300%
200% 129% 100% 0% Turkey Israel Lebanon
Source: Graph based on the data collected from Adnkronos (2018), own graph elaboration.
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The smuggling of stolen archaeological objects from Al-Nabuk in Syria has earned ISIS as much as $36 million and archaeologists have quantified the value of the finds and declared that it can exceed $1,500 million on the black market. According to estimates by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), UNESCO and the British secret services, the world’s illegal trade in objects of art and cultural goods is between 6 and 8 billion dollars a year. (M. Pompili, 2015)
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2.3 Theft and smuggling
The theft and trafficking of goods belonging to the artistic and archaeological heritage is a factor that affects all the territories of the world, from the poorest as exporters to the richest mainly as importers. This activity is not a novelty of our time indeed it is a phenomenon that already belongs to the past it is enough to remember the looting of the Egyptian pyramids or of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations. Today, however, unlike in the past, this criminal fact is much more worrying because its growth has assumed enormous proportions becoming a real threat to the world’s cultural heritage.
Usually, illicit trade, both in the exporting and importing country, such as arms and drugs, is considered illegal by both parties; in the case of cultural goods, however, in the absence of specific constraints or regulations, when these objects leave their country of origin without having been intercepted, once declared to the customs authorities of the country of destination they become freely tradable. In essence, they leave illegally but enter legally because the countries’ regulations on the movement of cultural goods are not aligned. (S. Beltrametti, 2013)
Depending on where these crimes are committed, the targets change; the most obvious example in West Africa is the illegal excavations carried out in Mali by local people who sell stolen objects to art traffickers. This illegal trafficking is a source of livelihood for entire villages. To understand the extent of this trafficking, if one compares the number of finds legally found by archaeologists with those scattered around the world and stored in museums, galleries and private collections, one realizes that the quantitative difference is enormous therefore it is easy to link them to an illegal source. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999)
In some countries of Western Europe, every year the archaeological sites are continuously plundered, in Italy a testimony of this destruction is represented by the plundering of Etruscan tombs and in Turkey were stolen artifacts of great value from the site of Anavarza. In addition to archaeological sites in European countries, museums, churches, galleries and private residences are also targeted by thieves who work mainly on commission. Famous paintings by great painters such as Picasso, Van Gogh, Manet are mostly stolen when they are found in Western Europe or North America. Great Britain estimates that the theft of regularly insured works of art is between $600 million and $750 million per year and $1,5
37 billion per year if you add all the works of art that have not been insured. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999)
Until not many years ago in the former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, the illegal activity of cultural goods was a serious problem, fueled above all by the need for a stronger currency and the greater freedom of movement of goods between borders, which favored this type of trade. Churches and other religious institutions have become a point of reference for theft of liturgical objects, the most stolen works of art are paintings and religious artifacts, chalices, crucifixes, carved wooden objects and amphorae. In 1993, the Czech Ministry of Cultural Heritage reported an annual loss of the national cultural heritage of 10%. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999)
As far as Asia is concerned, most illegal excavations are taking place in Cambodia, as evidenced by the fact that in the last 25 years the archaeological site of Angkor Wat has been stripped in an outrageous manner. In China about 40,000 graves have been plundered and the extent of this phenomenon is represented by the fact that only in the first six months of 1994 the customs authorities in Hong Kong had seized art objects worth around 5,5 million dollars. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999)
In Latin America, the remains of pre-Columbian civilizations are systematically plundered; the appropriation and sale of artifacts belonging to the Aztec, Incas and Mayan civilizations has become increasingly well organized. Near the village of Zaña in northern Peru there is a place called Corbacho that extends at the bottom of the mountain on an area of about fifty hectares, there are hundreds of holes made by looters so close to each other that it is impossible to walk without falling into it. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999)
Speaking about theft and recycling of works of art, one aspect that must be considered is the risk involved in committing such crimes. The dangers are undeniably low, in many countries there is a lack of specific national legislation on the subject, the borders are easy to overcome and the lack of documentation on the works of art, especially if they are not of enormous value, makes really difficult to identify and recover them. The works to be stolen are chosen on the basis of certain criteria: little protection, small or isolated places, ease of transport. (S. Ciotti Galletti, 2001)
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The supply scheme is simple: the supply of cultural goods comes from the countries of origin, where the plundering and consequent stripping of cultural heritage has become a common practice; the demand comes from consumers who have a considerable interest in the artistic field to create more and more listed collections; the transit is made through countries such as Switzerland which are intermediate warehouses for objects directed to the illegal markets of importing countries. (J. Sanchez Cordero, 2012)
The rarest and most valuable pieces, easily recognizable, are quickly removed from the place where the theft occurred; before being offered on the market many objects remain in stock for decades and during this time are built their stories, through the use of false certificates are described as artifacts from excavations of the Nineteenth century or inheritance that families have decided to sell. (S. Lucaroni, 2018) In this regard it is necessary to introduce the topic of free ports. Free ports were initially created with the aim of storing goods for a short period before they are transported without having to pay taxes or duties until they reach their final destination.
Today their use has increased, these places are also used to store valuable goods in a confidential and safe way. There is a risk that art dealers and organized crime will use free ports to store illicitly obtained stolen goods. (UNESCO, 2017) Examples can be given to show that these ports are closely linked to illicit trafficking in cultural goods.
In 1995 it was discovered that the Geneva Free Port was a warehouse for international traffic of looted antiquities and partly linked to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Following investigations carried out in Italy and involving the art dealer Giacomo Medici, the Swiss authorities were contacted. After a search in the free port of Geneva, they discovered thousands of objects from desecrated tombs, especially in Italy, and the documentation of previous illegal transactions, many of which involved the most important museums in the world. (M. Laird, 2012) Evidence of this fact is the sale of the Euphronius crater sold after the looting of an Etruscan tomb by Giacomo Medici to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and returned to Italy in 2008. (G. Baldi, 2019)
In 2003, the Egyptian embassy in Bern requested legal assistance from the FOJ (Federal Office of Justice) following criminal proceedings against persons accused of having carried out illegal excavations at various archaeological sites and of having collected, sold and exported numerous artefacts. In response to this request, the FOJ ordered the seizure of more
39 than 200 artefacts, in particular statues, masks, sarcophagi and even two mummies. (FOJ communiqué, 2003)
In 2010, after a check, the customs officers found a Roman sarcophagus from the Second century A.D. in white marble decorated with bas-reliefs depicting the twelve labors of Hercules; only three similar sculptures were known to the world until then. Thanks to the material and the style it was possible to identify the place of origin, the necropolis of Perge and in 2016 it was ordered to be returned to Turkey. (UNESCO, 2017)
In 2014, Italian investigators found 45 crates containing Roman and Etruscan antiques in the free port of Geneva, including two rare sarcophagi. The boxes had been deposited 15 years earlier by Robin Symes, an English art dealer, and were the systematic and illegal result of years of looting of archaeological sites in Italy. (C. Milmo, 2016)
After a custom check in 2013, arose the suspicion that some objects had an illegal origin. The seized finds were checked by an expert who certified their authenticity, three of them, the bust of a priest and two funerary bas-reliefs, dating from the Fourth century B.C. and the Third century A.D., arrived from the Syrian site of Palmyra, which houses the monumental remains of a city considered one of the major cultural centers of the ancient world and declared a world heritage by UNESCO, destroyed in 2015 by ISIS; instead the head of Aphrodite came from Libya and other pieces came from Yemen.
The first free ports have been made to store agricultural products and have been operational in Switzerland since 1849. The TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair) Art Market report 2017 estimates that 1,2 million works of art are stored only in the Geneva free port. According to UNESCO, there are currently seven free ports for art and it is claimed that most of the works stored come from theft, looting and illegal excavations all over the world and are then sold on the black market. (UNESCO, 2017)
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Graph 3: The main art free ports in the world.
Source: Graph based on the data collected from UNESCO (2017), own graph elaboration.
The black market of artistic and cultural goods is supported by various categories of people, ranging from simple looters to independent professional thieves to organized crime. To better understand the difference between the various actors involved in the trafficking of works of art, we can start by analyzing the path of looting of archaeological assets. Bearing in mind that this factor affects regions all over the world and that many people are involved, this process is divided into different levels. The first level is looting, where the occasional looting is done by beginners such as peasants and single diggers; then follows the systematic looting done instead by individuals who carry out these activities as a kind of second job, act independently and have a good knowledge of the pieces and their value in the markets; last and certainly most invasive is the organized looting carried out by groups working on a large scale. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999)
The second level is organized sales where an art dealer is usually involved, but not all art dealers have the skills and resources to operate on an international market. Rich in means, human, organizational, economic and technological resources, organized crime enters into the illegal world of art covering various roles: markets stolen and illegally stolen works, acts as an intermediary between professional thieves or art dealers and collectors or simply appropriates itself of works of art in order to have a value that is easily transportable,
41 exchangeable and recyclable. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999; G. Pastore, 2008) One of the aims of organized crime in the case of art objects is also blackmail, an example is the singular case that occurred in Italy in 1992 when the Maniero band called “Mafia del Brenta” stole several paintings from Modena in the Palazzo dei Musei, including a Velasquez and a Correggio. In 1995, a few years after his arrest, Maniero used the stolen paintings as a bargaining chip to reduce his sentence; the investigators found the paintings hidden in an abandoned farmhouse in the province of Padua. (D. Lombardi, 2017)
The control that crime has over art is such that if it stopped buying works of art to clean up its illicit gains, part of the art market would collapse. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999)
2.3.1 The Italian situation
According to UNESCO half of the works of art and buildings of historical, cultural and artistic interest worldwide are on Italian territory, is one of the largest and most important heritage in the world. The fundamental problem of the Italian heritage is precisely its vastness, it is scattered and located in every part of the country. Divided as it is between public and private bodies and private citizens is quite impossible to census it, make an assessment and it is equally difficult to keep it properly. (R. Conforti, 2001) In Italy there are more than 4,000 museums containing more than 40 million works of art, there are churches, palaces, villas, castles and archaeological sites. (ISTAT data, 2016)
Italy, unfortunately, shares with other European countries a continuous loss of objects and works of art stolen from museums and galleries, from private homes, especially if isolated or uninhabited for long periods, from small abandoned or semi-abandoned country churches, often rich in liturgical objects easy to market given their high demand and easy to hide once taken.
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Graph 4: Main works of art illegally stolen in Italy and not yet recovered.
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Archaeology Graphic/painting/mosaic Religious/devotional Sculpture
Source: Graph based on the data collected from the bulletins of the C.C. T.P.C. operational activity 2009-2018 (numbers of the C.C. T.P.C. bulletins from 31 to 40), own graph elaboration.
Looking at the trend of the main works of art stolen in Italy and not yet recovered, we can see that the stolen works preferred by thieves are belonging to the field of graphic, pictorial, mosaic (green line). Examining the data, it can be seen that most of the stolen works concern painting, in particular from the C.C. T.P.C. bulletins emerges that oil paintings on canvas are the category of works of art that are most targeted by thieves. This category includes also oil paintings on wood, tempera paintings on wood, ink and pencil drawings on paper, drawings on paper and charcoal drawings on paper. Analyzing the data, we can see that these thefts have a very inconsistent trend, between 2009 and 2012 there is a high level of thefts that will fall in subsequent years remaining significantly below the 60 thefts per year until 2015, when the thefts of paintings were lower than the annual sculptural ones. In 2016, thefts increased significantly compared to the previous year, but thanks to the efforts of the C.C. T.P.C. in recent years theft decreased significantly and remain constant at a level below 30 pieces per year, so in 2017 and 2018 the activity has generated good results. In the other categories taken into consideration we can see that in addition to the exceptional peak in 2015 in which 36 sculptural pieces were stolen, the number of objects illegally stolen in the archaeological sector (blue line), religious or devotional sector (yellow line) and sculptural sector (red line) remains fairly constant at a level below 20 thefts per year. To make the
43 analysis more complete, table 1 of the appendix A illustrates the main stolen works of art divided by sector.
In various places in Italy, archaeological sites, especially those not yet registered, are systematically excavated by small organized groups, the so-called “tombaroli”, which every year sneak away precious objects, particularly in the Etruscan necropolis of Tuscany; in fact, the term “tombarolo” was created to indicate people who illegally excavated Etruscan tombs in Lazio and Tuscany. Today the term takes on the connotation of “predator of tombs” and refers to anyone who carries out an illegal archaeological excavation both on the ground and on the sea with the aim of reselling the objects found on the black market.
The graph below shows the data recorded from 2012 to 2016 on illegal excavations in Italy. In the first three years of the five-year period considered there was a significant increase in this illegal activity, but thanks to the increasing controls and repression carried out by the Carabinieri Command T.P.C. in the subsequent period from 2014 to 2016, the number of crimes decreased significantly. In all the areas at risk, the monitoring of the sites is also done with the collaboration of the territorial police.
Graph 5: Clandestine excavations in Italy between 2012 and 2016.
70 59 60 49 50
40 37
30 21 20 14
10
0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Source: Carabinieri Command Database, Cultural Heritage Protection Division, operational activity, 2016.
The importance that Italy has in the cultural field is highlighted by the fact that in 1990 about 30,000 works of art were taken from its heritage, half of those that passed through the 44 borders of the countries of the European Community. Objects stolen from Italian territory are more easily sold in rich countries, it is estimated that 40% is purchased only by the United States. (S. Ciotti Galletti, 2001)
There are many works created by Italian artists of all time that are currently in museums and private collections in Europe, the United States, Japan and that are part of the phenomenon of “dispersion” of the Italian artistic and cultural heritage. To prove this, just think of the “Nozze di Cana” by Veronese, a painting almost nine meters wide taken away from the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore in 1797 by Napoleon during the sacking of Venice. The work had been cut into several parts to facilitate transport and then reassembled and it is now in Paris in the Louvre Museum. (Finestre sull’Arte, 2019)
Another example is the Etruscan parade Chariot, part of the funerary equipment of an Etruscan dignitary, dating from the Sixth century B.C., which was found by a farmer in 1902 in Monteleone di Spoleto. The “Chariot of Monteleone” is currently located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which bought it illegally in 1903. (Finestre sull’Arte, 2019)
A similar situation is that of the “Victorious Athlete”, a bronze from the Fourth century B.C., about one and a half meters high made by the Greek artist Lisippo, found in 1964 by fishermen in the Adriatic Sea and illicitly sold to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Getty Museum has always known that half of the works of art from Italy were stolen, to prove this already in 1985 it was aware that some of its art suppliers were selling illegally found objects, but this has not prevented the museum to continue to buy these objects. (D. Vankin, 2018)
The immense wealth of Italy’s cultural heritage is tempting the clandestine market, thefts on commission, illegal exports and counterfeits are the most concrete expressions of this situation. Comparing the statistical data in the tables below, it can be seen that at the national level, the difference in theft in 2015 and 2016 has remained almost unchanged. The assessment of these data changes if we compare the thefts that occurred in the individual regions and it is possible to see how some of them have undergone a sharp increase, in 2015 the region most affected by this phenomenon was the Campania (57), followed by Tuscany (53) and Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna that recorded the same data (52). In 2016, however, the region that was most involved was Tuscany (69), followed by the Campania (52) and
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Piedmont and Lazio that recorded the same data (51). The biggest difference in thefts between 2015 and 2016 was in Tuscany (+16), followed by Piedmont (+15) and Sicily (+7). Although these regions are the most affected by the phenomenon, we must note that the greatest percentage variations are in Molise (+200%) and Basilicata (+100%) because being regions little affected by the phenomenon, one more theft has a much greater weight in percentage terms than the one attributed to the regions where there are many thefts.
Table 2: Increase of theft in Italian regions.
2015 2016 Difference Variation % Toscana 53 69 +16 +30.2 Piemonte 36 51 +15 +41.7 Sicilia 22 29 +7 +31.8 Liguria 10 15 +5 +50 Lazio 49 51 +2 +4.8 Sardegna 5 7 +2 +40 Trentino-Alto Adige 5 6 +1 +20 Molise 1 3 +2 +200 Basilicata 1 2 +1 +100
Source: Carabinieri Command Database, Cultural Heritage Protection Division, operational activity, 2016.
In other regions, however, there has been a sharp decrease in theft. The regions that suffered the least number of thefts in 2015 are Valle d’Aosta, Basilicata and Molise, which were placed on an equal footing with only one theft per region; in 2016 the situation remains virtually unchanged, the least affected region is Valle d’Aosta (0), followed by Basilicata (2) and Molise and Calabria which recorded the same data (3). The highest difference in thefts between 2015 and 2016 is recorded in Emilia-Romagna (-20), followed by Lombardy (-8) and Puglia (-7). Also, in this case, as in the previous one, we can notice that the regions where the decrease in the number of thefts is greater are not those with the greatest percentage variation, Valle d'Aosta (-100%) and Calabria (-50%). It is important to note that the only region that has not even suffered a theft throughout 2016 is Valle d’Aosta.
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Table 3: Reduction of theft in Italian regions.
2015 2016 Difference Variation % Emilia-Romagna 52 32 -20 -38.5 Lombardia 52 44 -8 -15.4 Puglia 19 12 -7 -36.8 Campania 57 52 -5 -8.7 Veneto 28 24 -4 -14.3 Calabria 6 3 -3 -50 Umbria 16 14 -2 -12.5 Abruzzo 8 7 -1 -12.5 Friuli-Venezia Giulia 8 5 -1 -20 Valle D’Aosta 1 0 -1 -100 Marche 23 23 0 0 Source: Carabinieri Command Database, Cultural Heritage Protection Division, operational activity, 2016.
Undoubtedly, at the national level, the fact that thefts have not increased is a positive fact and a goal that denotes and emphasizes the protection that the work of the C.C. T.P.C. carries out on the territory, but it remains however a negative aspect that in an era so technologically advanced, where information is disclosed worldwide, we still must fight against these crimes. The positive activity carried out by the C.C. T.P.C. can also be seen about the theft of cultural property reported in Italy. In the graph below, we can in fact see that at national level there is a downward trend; thefts from more than 900 in 2011 reached less than 500 in 2016 and in the six years considered there has been a progressive decrease of more than 50%.
Graph 6: Total theft of cultural property in Italy.
1000 900 800 700 600 500 906 891 400 676 300 609 200 450 449 100 0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Source: Carabinieri Command Database, Cultural Heritage Protection Division, operational activity, 2016. 47
2.4 The influence of fakes in the art market
Copying or imitating of a work of art is not itself an incorrect action, if the person who made the reproduction declares it. Having well-made copies can also bring advantages, for example, if we take into account the lost works, the duplicate can be a way to admire them anyway; another positive aspect of the reproduction is to give visibility to the original work to more people by exposing the copy in different places. As proof of this in 2001, first in Rome and then in Milan was organized by the C.C. T.P.C. in collaboration with Giuseppe Solzano, a passionate collector of fakes, an exhibition where ten paintings were exhibited, all declaredly counterfeit, representing some of the most beautiful Italian works stolen and not yet found. (S. Ciotti Galletti, 2003)
The category of forgeries includes different types of counterfeiting: the replicas that are made by the artist himself and reflect his previous production and are retro dated and the original forgeries that follow the style, technique, use of materials and subjects typical of an artist so that they can be mistaken for real and if declared, as mentioned above, are not illegal but, when they are passed off as authentic forgery becomes a crime.
The fake market is born when there is an interest in a certain artist and a substantial demand develops on its production; the easiest, fastest and most convenient way to increase supply is counterfeiting. Counterfeiting damages artists, galleries, auction houses and all those who work lawfully in the art world, resulting in uncertainty in the market. If illegal counterfeiting were not combated, the copies marketed would produce a greater economic advantage than the originals and to avoid this, several legal systems have provided a set of rules to protect both artists and collectors.
In the Italian legal system, the law is found in Article 64 of the Code of Cultural Heritage which states: “the obligation to make a declaration of authenticity or of the probable attribution and provenance of the work that art dealers are required to deliver to the purchaser of works of art; if these are unknown, it is sufficient to make a self-declaration indicating all available information on the authenticity or probable attribution and provenance. The declaration of authenticity may come from the artist, his heirs, archives, foundations (the purpose of a foundation dedicated to a single artist is generally to disseminate and protect the artist’s work) or any other agent appointed by the heirs to catalogue the artist’s works. The
48 certificate of authenticity has the function of ensuring the quality of the work of art, while the certificate of origin has the purpose of ensuring the lawful origin of the good”.
A key aspect to combat counterfeiting is the traceability of the work, every artist should have an archive of his production containing all the declarations of authenticity, the catalog reasoned will allow those working in the art market to establish the authenticity of a work. (M. Guenzi, 2014) A good example of this is the 2017 case in Genoa; during the exhibition held at the Doge’s Palace, the 21 paintings by Modigliani and some works by Kisling were considered false and seized by the C.C. T.P.C. As far as the Polish artist is concerned, it was possible to establish the counterfeiting of his works thanks to the official curator of the catalogue. (M. Pirelli, 2018)
The C.C. T.P.C. every year seizes thousands of counterfeit works of art that are placed on the market, in the graphs and tables that follow are examined three areas: antiquarian, archaeological and contemporary. In the graph below, it is possible to see how only in Italy from 2010 to 2017 were in the years removed from the market 64,796 fakes. Between 2010 and 2012 the number of counterfeit works seized annually is around 5,000 pieces, between 2013 and 2016 the number of works confiscated decreases not exceeding 1,700 pieces per year and then arrive in 2017 to a total seizure of 43,853 works with a dramatic increase of 5,388.48% due to the seizure occurred in a single operation of 42,283 silkscreens falsely attributed to the painter Gonzaga.
Graph 7: Total seized forgeries per year.
50.000 43.853 45.000 40.000 35.000 30.000 25.000 20.000 15.000 10.000 5.563 5.206 4.975 5.000 1.112 1.687 1.601 799 0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Source: Graph based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the Carabinieri Command TPC, own graph elaboration. 49
These illegal reproductions are sold on the market by counterfeiters who, in addition to damaging the artists, make huge profits by selling the fakes as authentic goods making the criminal action particularly profitable. As it is possible to note in the table below, the high value of seized counterfeit goods is a constant. In particular, it is possible to notice the very strong economic increases in 2014 with a percentage change of 1,220.55% and in 2015 with a percentage change of 681.14%.
Table 4: Percentage change in economic estimate of seized forgeries.
Year Economic estimate of Economic difference Percentage variation seized forgeries over the years
2010 123,886,340 - -
2011 54,329,000 -41,940,366 -33.85%
2012 78,023,881 +23,694,881 + 43.61%
2013 32,354,050 -45,699,831 - 58.57%
2014 427,251,287 +394,897,237 + 1,220.55%
2015 3,337,443,254 +2,910,191,967 + 681.14%
2016 57,099,900 -3,280,343,354 -98.29%
2017 218,715,350 +161,615,450 + 283.04%
Source: Table based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C., own table elaboration.
To make the situation of the economic estimation of the forgeries seized by the C.C. T.P.C. more visual the graph below shows that only in Italy, during the period under analysis, the economic amount of the seized fake works circulating on the market was 4,329,103,062 billion Euros. Specifically, it is possible to see that between 2010 and 2014 the economic estimate of the seized fakes is below 450 million Euros per year. In 2015, on the other hand, there is a value that exceeds 3 billion Euros, and then returns in subsequent years to a value of less than 250 million Euros per year.
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Graph 8: Economic estimate of seized forgeries.
4.000.000.000
3.337.443.254 3.500.000.000
3.000.000.000
2.500.000.000
2.000.000.000
1.500.000.000
1.000.000.000 123.886.340 78.023.881 427.251.287 218.715.350 500.000.000 54.329.000 32.354.050 57.099.900
0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Source: Graph based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C., own graph elaboration.
An element that emerges when crossing the data examined is that there is no directly proportional relationship between the number of pieces required and the estimated economic value of the same on the market; the falsifications of a certain category have more value than those of another in fact in 2015 with only 1,601 pieces the economic estimate exceeds 3 billion Euros, while in 2017 despite the fact that the seized works are 43,853 the economic estimate is about 218 million Euros. This considerable difference is due to the fact that the works of the archaeological sector have a much greater value than those belonging to the contemporary sector; this is demonstrated in in the following table in which the fake works seized in 2015 are 1,077 for the archaeological/paleontological sector and 507 for the contemporary sector, while in 2017 the assets seized belonging to the archaeological/paleontological sector are 26 and those relating to the contemporary sector are 43,814. In the analysis, data from the antiques sector, 17 pieces in 2015 and 13 pieces in 2017, are not considered because they are irrelevant for the comparison purposes.
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Table 5: Comparison of the economic estimate of the archaeological sector with the contemporary sector.
Year Archaeological sector Contemporary Economic estimate sector 2015 1,077 507 3,337,443,254 2017 26 43,814 218,715,350
Source: Table based on the data collected from the operational activity 2015-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C., own table elaboration.
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CHAPTER 3 LAW ENFORCEMENT AND PROTECTION
3.1 INTERPOL
At the beginning of the Twentieth century, because of the illegal trade which had by then reached enormous proportions, many Countries felt the need to establish an international cooperation to combat this phenomenon. Numerous conferences have taken place over the years, but it was only in 1914 in the Principality of Monaco, during the first International Congress of Criminal Police, that the fundamental principles for the creation of a real international organization were established. The congress was attended by police officers, magistrates and lawyers from fourteen different states and have proposed to “de voir se gènèraliser et amèliorer les rapports directs officiels de police à police entre les diffèrents pays à l’effet de permettre toutes investigations de nature à faciliter l’action de la justice rèpressive”. (to see the generalization and improvement of direct official police-to-police relations between the various countries in order to allow all investigations likely to facilitate the action of the repressive justice system) unfortunately the implementation of this project was prevented by the sudden outbreak of the First World War.
After the war in 1923 in Vienna, the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC) was set up at the second International Criminal Police Congress. The commission was organized in such a way as to enable it to provide international cooperation services in the field of state-to-state search and seizure of criminals, the fight against counterfeiting of currencies and illicit drug trafficking. An important center for legal and criminal studies has been established, with specialized officers, information files, reporting services, journals and technical publications. In 1946, the Commission adopted the name of INTERPOL deriving from the contraction of the words “international police” and in 1956, during the twenty-fifth session of the General Assembly, when a new statute was approved, it changed the official name to the current one: The International Criminal Police Organization - INTERPOL, abbreviated in ICPO-INTERPOL on the proposal of the Italian policeman Giuseppe Dosi. In 1947 INTERPOL was recognized as an intergovernmental organization of the United Nations.
Today it is based in Lyon, France, and is the world’s largest criminal police organization, comprising 194 countries; in each of these countries, in order to improve investigative cooperation and overcome structural differences between national police,
53 language barriers and the different legal systems of the States, a national central office (NCO) of international police has been set up, composed of highly qualified officials, who have the task of collaborating with the other sections and the local police in order to combat and repress crime at the international level. INTEPOL is not an investigative organization with an international mandate that can operate anywhere, in fact, it does not have its own police forces but is a body of rapid coordination between the different police services operating in the various States that have joined the organization. In Italy, the national central office is in Rome and is responsible for coordinating the international investigations of the police forces present on the territory. In the Czech Republic, the national central office is in Prague and deals with all matters relating to international investigations concerning the State. (INTERPOL Website, 2019)
INTERPOL works to ensure access to the tools and services needed to carry out police work by providing training, expert investigative support, data and secure communication channels to help the police understand criminal trends, analyze information, conduct investigations and arrest criminals. The role of OIPC-INTERPOL is therefore, as described in Article 2 of its Statutes, to enable police from around the world to work together to make the world a safer place, ensuring and promoting mutual assistance between the criminal police authorities of different countries in accordance with different national laws and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.
Its purpose is to prevent and stop crime in its various aspects, including the illicit trade in cultural goods. OIPC-INTERPOL has two fundamental tools at its disposal: a telecommunications circuit for the rapid exchange of reliable and secure information and a modern computer network with an automatic search system. The different police forces of the various States, even if they have different methods and structures, integrate and complement each other and this makes cooperation permanent and international. (P. Simone, 1998)
3.1.1 INTERPOL, the CRIGEN/ART form and the Databases
Although no formal agreement has been concluded between INTERPOL, UNESCO, ICOM (International Council of Museum), the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit
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Appropriation, the Council of Europe and the World Customs Organization (WCO), the close cooperation that has been established between these organizations has proved particularly fruitful. The first result was the creation of the CRIGEN/ART form, produced by INTERPOL, printed in four languages: French, English, Spanish and Arabic, which is intended to help policemen who may have very little knowledge of the works of art that have been stolen.
Once the CRIGEN/ART form has been completed, a summary note on the theft is drawn up and a file opened, the officers responsible for it prepare a newsletter which is sent to all the Member States, as well as to ICOM and UNESCO; each Member State must circulate the newsletter to the various police departments, art galleries, museums, auction houses, pawnshops, antique dealers and customs offices. The more the news is circulated, the more its effectiveness increases and often the speed with which the operators concerned are informed and often the finding of artefacts depends precisely on the speed with which the operators concerned are informed.
The Secretary publishes a circular twice per year, the so-called “poster”, , which each time reproduces the six most sought-after works of art describing them in English and French (The Most Wanted Works of Art and Les oeuvres d’art les plus recherchées); these posters follow the same circuit as the newsletters and are sent to all the national central offices, which in turn are responsible for their publication in art magazines and professional newspapers and disseminate them through the mass media, according to the provisions of various national laws, these posters must also be posted in public places. When these objects are found, the Secretary-General of INTERPOL will suspend the search.
The OIPC-INTERPOL also disseminates the data of those who carry out the theft of artistic property and taking into account that generally these crimes are committed by specialists, if these people have already been identified by the police of the various countries, in the appropriate news you can also find photographs, identities, pseudonyms, fingerprints and all the elements useful for the issuance of an international arrest warrant or the location of people involved in the criminal affair. Thanks to all the information collected, it is possible to make connections with other episodes which have similar criminal characteristics, such as, for example, the particular way the theft was carried out. INTERPOL officials organize conferences, symposia and working groups on all types of crimes or offences, including those committed against cultural heritage.
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Since 1987, the technology has evolved considerably and the CRIGEN/ART form, while retaining its importance, has not proved to be enough to guarantee the information of the data. In 1990, the Secretary of INTERPOL solved the problem by adding to the CRIGEN/ART form an archive, the Automated Search Facility (ASF), which combines the text with an image and a simple and visual object description accessible by all police operations and can be consulted by all Member States with the necessary technical equipment.
This database includes all the bulletins published since 1947 (provided they are still current) and police-certified information on stolen or missing art objects provided by the various NCOs of the Member States or by ITERPOL’s international partner organizations (UNESCO, ICOM, ICCROM). It should be noted that the ASF was not designed to register all the stolen objects in the world but only those perfectly identifiable that may affect foreign markets. So, the fact that some items are not included does not mean they have not been stolen. However, the ASF system plays a primary role in INTERPOL’s work to standardize the descriptive criteria for works of art within the international police force, allowing simple and precise identification of objects, accessible to all specialist operators. Its main features are the link between text and image, its easy use, the phonetic search for the artist’s name, the search for the size of the object, the appearance of forty-eight images and the use of full screen figures. This system is constantly updated, and its latest version is called Stolen Works of Art Database, which follows the same structure as the ASF system and allows all authorized users to verify in real time whether the objects are included or not in the more than 50,000 objects of the INTERPOL database. (P. Simone, 1998; INTERPOL website, 2019)
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3.2 The Carabinieri Command – cultural heritage protection
Following Italy’s accession to the International Commission of Criminal Police on 28 July 1930, the Italian national central office with headquarters in Rome was established. However, its use has a purely formal function, since international collaboration was held in low regard by the fascist government; however, a special office was created at the Ministry of the Interior, which was part of the Political Police Division. In 1943 the International Commission for the recovery and restitution of works of art was established and in 1946 a Delegation was established to deal with the recovery of goods stolen by the Nazis during the war and at the time of the retreat. The action of the Delegation was limited to article 77, the only amendment obtained by the Italian government during the signing of the peace treaty that provided for the possibility of requesting the return of works of art removed from Italy before 8 September 1943.
Rodolfo Siviero oversees the management of this Delegation and manages to locate and recover a large number of works of art that disappeared during the years of the conflict or were stolen not only by Nazis but also by Americans and English. The Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage and the Command of the Carabinieri began to consult the rich archive of Siviero and when in 1970 UNESCO recommended to the Member States to set up a special police body for the protection of artistic and cultural heritage, Italy was in clear advantage because in 1969 it had already formed the Carabinieri Command Ministry of Education - Core Protection of Artistic Heritage (Nucleo Tutela Patrimonio Artistico). (M. Baistrocchi, 2008)
Initially, this division was part of the Ministry of Education and in 1975 the Command passed under the new Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage, which with a ministerial decree clearly specifies its location. Despite the fact that the State Police and the Guardia di Finanza (GDF) also operate actively on the national territory in the fight against the illicit trafficking of works of art, the specificity and importance of the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Artistic and Cultural Heritage consists in being the specific body of contrast for the protection of the Italian artistic and cultural heritage, highly competent and specialized in continuous contact with the other investigative offices of other countries. (S. Ciotti Galletti, 2003)
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The Carabinieri Command, based in Rome in Sant’Ignazio Square, operates based on the directives of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, in agreement with all the other forces of law and order and in collaboration with the local Superintendence of Fine Arts, carrying out both preventive and repressive interventions. The Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (C.C. T.P.C.) and all its independent units are located in buildings of historical and architectural importance, belonging to the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.
The section Processing and Data in Rome is located inside the barracks Lamarmora, in 1212 the structure was home of the hospice of San Biagio where it is believed that St. Francis of Assisi stead waiting to be received by Pope Innocent III. In Sicily, in Palermo, the seat of the C.C. T.P.C. is in the Albergo dei Poveri building that was built in 1772 by order of Charles III of Bourbon outside the walls to accommodate the poor people of the city. In Ancona the headquarters is located in the Palazzo dei conti Bonarelli, a palace built in the Middle Ages on the remains of a Roman amphitheater renovated in both ‘500 and in the second half of ‘800 and its peculiarity is to have incorporated and preserved within it all the different architectural styles. In Puglia the nucleus C.C. T.P.C. resides in the Swabian Castle of Bari, built by Roger the Norman in 1131 and after its destruction in 1156 was rebuilt by Frederick II of Sweden. At the beginning of the Sixteenth century Isabella d’Aragona transformed the castle into a luxurious residence for writers and artists. During the French Revolution the Bourbons used the castle as a fortress and prison. In Bologna, the headquarters is on the second floor of Palazzo Pepoli-Campogrande, built in the second half of the Eighteenth century and shared with the Pinacoteca di Bologna and the Zambeccari collection. In Sardinia, in Cagliari, the residence is inside a state property complex built after the Second World War. The core of Cosenza is in some rooms of the Palazzo Arnone located in the historic center, is one of the oldest patrician homes, built in the early ‘500 by Bartolo Arnone and then acquired in 1558 by the Spanish governor who used it as a court and penitential home. In Tuscany, in Florence, is the Pitti Palace that houses the core of the T.P.C., probably designed by Brunelleschi, was the residence of the Medici family, the palace that is located a few meters from the Ponte Vecchio is home to prestigious museums: The Palatine Gallery, the Museum of Silver, the Gallery of Modern Art and the Gallery of Costume. In Genoa, the headquarters is located in the Monumental Complex of St. Ignatius purchased by the Jesuits in 1659. It remained in their possession until 1773, when it was used by the Sisters of Santa Maria Maddalena and then transformed into a barracks in 1798. In the Villa Reale in Monza, 58 the premises located in the left wing in front of the rose garden house the headquarters of the T.P.C. in Milan; born as the residence of the fourth son of Maria Teresa of Austria who in 1764 was appointed governor general of Lombardy in 1805 and in 1814 was chosen as the residence of the Viceroys of Italy. In 1849 it became Radetzki’s headquarters and ten years later it passed to the Savoy family, becoming Umberto I’s favorite residence in 1878. The killing of the king in 1900, right near the villa, marks the end of the cultural, artistic and political life that had characterized the building and the city of Monza. The seat of Naples resides in the complex of Castel Sant’Elmo, clearly visible stands on top of the hill of Vomero. The date of construction of the building is not certain but already in 1275 there was a residence called Belforte and inhabited by the families of Charles of Anjou. Thanks to its strategic position over the years was expanded and modified and in the Seventeenth century assumes the current configuration in the shape of a six-pointed star and is designed as a real citadel becoming the defensive hub of the city. The section of Syracuse is located in the House of the square of arms of the Castle of Maniace in Ortigia, in 1038 the Byzantine commander Maniace built a fort then transformed into a castle by Frederick II around 1230. Its history is rich in events, it hosted kings and queens from 1500 to 1700 when the building was damaged by two earthquakes and an explosion occurred in the powder magazine. In the Napoleonic era the castle was equipped with two mouths of cannon thus resuming its military function and in 1838 the Bourbons built a casemate and after the unification of Italy remains a military structure. The Carabinieri Core T.P.C. of Turin is located in the Palazzina Casa Spalla in the complex of the Royal Palace and overlooks the archaeological area consisting of the ancient Roman gate and the Roman theater. The history of the palace begins in 1563 when Emanuele Filiberto moved the capital of the duchy to Turin and began the fortification of the city. With the transfer of the capital first to Florence and then to Rome, the Royal Palace loses its functions of residence and becomes a museum and office. In Venice on San Marco Square overlooks the Palazzo delle Procuratie Nuove, residence of the procurators of San Marco, work begins in 1582 and ends in the middle of the Seventeenth century. In 1806 the Viceroy of France and Prince of Venice transformed the building into the Royal Palace. Today it houses the Correr Museum, the Museum of the Renaissance, the Archaeological Museum, the Marciana National Library, also hosts the Superintendence for the Historical, Artistic and Anthropological Heritage, the Superintendence of Architectural Heritage and Landscape of Veneto, as well as the representation of UNESCO and the Carabinieri Command T.P.C. (Website C.C. T.P.C., 2019)
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3.2.1 The structure and functions of the Carabinieri Command - Protection of Cultural Heritage
Reporting to the Commander of the C.C. T.P.C. there are: a Deputy Commander Colonel who controls and commands the cores established in the various regions of Italy, an Operational Department divided into three sections: antiques, archaeology, forgeries and contemporary art and head of the operations office, a Lieutenant Colonel has the task of analyzing the event (for example, a theft) and planning the contrast strategies, managing the Data Processing Section and coordinating the interventions with the other law enforcement agencies.
The C.C. T.P.C. carries out criminal police investigations and its fundamental tasks are to combat all violations of the law on cultural heritage made by individuals and criminal organizations. In particular, it deals with clandestine excavations at archaeological sites, theft and receiving of works of art and their illegal trade, damage to monuments and archaeological sites, illegal export of cultural goods, counterfeiting of antiques and other works of painting, graphics and sculpture; it seeks to combat money laundering operations conducted through the reinvestment of illegal proceeds from both the purchase and sale of artistic and cultural property; it also seeks to prevent crimes against the landscape.
Another task of the C.C. T.P.C. is to be the center of information and analysis functions about the artistic and cultural heritage for the benefit of all departments of the Carabinieri and other police forces. It periodically carries out monitoring and control activities of land and marine archaeological sites and those considered World Heritage by UNESCO with the support of the Carabinieri Air Force Group, the Carabinieri Horse Regiment, the Territorial Corps and naval units in close collaboration with the MiBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali) and the competent Superintendence. The C.C. T.P.C. usually carries out checks and surveys on antique dealers, junk dealers, restorers and art dealers and also exercises this surveillance at exhibitions, fairs, auctions both in Italy and abroad through the collaboration with INTERPOL and other international police forces; it is in close contact with the Ecclesiastical Authorities for the protection of the cultural heritage of the church, one of the most subject to theft and difficult to control given its size.
In addition to an active presence of repression, the C.C. T.P.C. participates in conferences and research in the areas of interest and actively collaborates in the study and 60 development of operational projects with universities, foundations and national research centers. In addition to its collaboration with UNESCO, as already mentioned, it also extends to international bodies such as the ICCROM (International Centre for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage), with which it has stipulated a protocol of understanding concerning research, training, dissemination and promotion activities regarding the protection and conservation of cultural heritage.
A very important collaboration is the one with ICOM because the discipline of cultural heritage requires at supranational level a regulation that can meet the different needs on a global scale. ICOM “Establishes professional and ethical standards for museum activities, makes recommendations on such issues, promotes training, advances knowledge and raises public cultural awareness though global networks and cooperation programmes”. Among its most important documents there is the code of ethics, which sets minimum professional and management standards for museums and their staff. By joining ICOM you are committed to respecting the code, it is an example of self-regulation at world level, but its application has gone beyond its members, in fact many countries such as Italy have adopted rules that make express reference to its Code. These standards are based on a level of professional experience and ICOM can therefore be considered a private body that performs regulatory functions worldwide.
Even the C.C. T.P.C. with specific cultural cooperation agreements at governmental level or at the request of international bodies, carries out specific training activities in favor of ministerial police and customs officers of foreign states. It assists MiBAC officials in the activities of census, security and recovery of cultural assets in areas of the national territory affected by major disasters and as part of international peace missions intervenes in crisis areas for the preservation and protection of the cultural heritage of areas affected by conflict (R. Conforti, 1999).
Over the centuries, wars and natural disasters have repeatedly destroyed the extraordinary and widespread Italian heritage made by the many civilizations that have flourished in our territory over thousands of years. These devastating factors have contributed to the development of an advanced model of protection and the creation of a specialized corps, unique in the world, which for decades has made its professionalism available to the international community, also intervening with its restorers in many countries of the
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Mediterranean, the Middle East, Asia and, as happened in Iraq, employing the military of the C.C. T.P.C.
The C.C. T.P.C. is the first specialized police service in the world and the facts that have certainly allowed to obtain the necessary credit to operate on the international field are the investigative experience and the operational successes obtained. (On. D. Franceschini, 2017) In 2016, with the establishment of the task force “unite4heritage” composed of “Blue Helmets for Culture”, our country was the first to respond concretely to the appeals of UNESCO regarding the protection of cultural heritage at risk. Italy will be able to intervene in crisis areas by making its experience and technical knowledge available to the affected populations and local governments in order to protect and safeguard the cultural heritage anywhere in the world. (Commander C.C. T.P.C., General F. Parrulli, 2017)
The task force trained to act in dangerous situations is composed of a core of 30 C.C. T.P.C. Carabineers and 30 MiBAC technicians with different specializations in the field of cultural heritage conservation, art historians, scholars and restorers of the Higher Institute for Conservation and Restoration, of the Hard Stones Factory in Florence, of the Central Institute for the Conservation and Restoration of Archival and Bookshop Heritage, of the Central Institute for Catalogue and Documentation and also some university professors have expressed their interest in becoming part of this unit in the future. (MiBAC, 2016)
In carrying out its activities of preventing and combating the traffic of works of art, the C.C. T.P.C. uses a database called ORACLE, which is divided into three main areas: events, i.e. all thefts, robberies, damage, etc.; artistic assets that includes all descriptive information of goods related to the events including photographs and images; people that includes all data and personal information regarding the subjects involved in the events mentioned above. These three distinct areas are correlated and related to the operating system called “Leonardo”. With the help of Technology Reply (the Reply Group company specializes in Oracle technology), the General Command of the Carabinieri has started a process of technological adaptation and enhancement of the information system currently in use at the C.C. T.P.C., to support the processes of investigation and planning of interventions to protect works of art. The result is the creation of a new information system that introduces new emerging technologies to allow interaction with the database in real time through the latest generation equipment and perform research and analysis on all the information assets
62 collected in over twenty years of activity. The project to strengthen the Leonardo Information System is one of the initiatives provided by the National Operational Programme of the Ministry of the Interior and co-financed by the European Union.
In order to identify and recover stolen works of art with the use of new technologies able to monitor and constantly update the situation at national and international level, the C.C. T.P.C. bases its work by implementing new measures of prevention, protection and contrast through the new software platform at the base of the Leonardo Project equipped with a multilingual interface that makes accessible advanced features such as document management, research and analysis of geographical and investigative type. Thanks to the new information system, the staff of the Carabinieri can interact with the database in real time through a wireless application and latest generation equipment, such as handhelds and laptops, which during the control operations allow to have available directly on the spot all the useful information and starting from a picture taken on the spot with digital equipment you can, for example, request the system to verify the lawful origin of the work of art; from the place of intervention, also the operator of the C.C. T.P.C. can compile an electronic report and send it to the central system for the following operations of verification and investigative analysis.
At the central level is the Data Processing Section of the C.C. T.P.C. to check all the information sent from the place of intervention both by the Carabinieri and by other Police Forces, highly specialized personnel through a classification software, based on an iconographic database, takes care of the insertion of every peculiar characteristic to the artistic asset of interest, such as its type (painting, sculpture, ancient book, etc. ...), the subject depicted, the authors, the materials and the technique of execution, such information is further enriched through the consultation of external databases, integrated into the system. The strength of the Leonardo system is expressed in its advanced research capabilities, capable not only of verifying and finding lexical terms used to describe the work, but also of comparing images or portions of images on the basis of their graphic characteristics, as well as using concepts contained in the context to be searched as search keys.
Research and operational collaboration to combat crimes against cultural heritage has become a common element in many countries and in 2015 the European Union funded the project PSYCHE (Protection SYstem for the Cultural HEritage). This project was developed
63 under the guidance of the C.C. T.P.C. in collaboration with INTERPOL and aims to intensify and improve the exchange of information between the Police Offices of various countries on stolen works of art through the development of a specific interface software to link the Italian database “Leonardo” with the database Stolen WOA (Works of Art) of INTERPOL. The police are determined to improve investigative techniques and protection procedures through the optimization of computer tools in order to create a point of reference at the international level, but all this is not enough if, in addition to making a better cataloging of all preserved assets, do not adapt and unify the laws of various countries. (R. Conforti, 1999)
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3.3 Control, contrast and prevention tools
States are now fully aware that the theft of works of art and archaeological objects is a significant cultural and economic impoverishment for all. Too often the initiatives taken to combat this phenomenon are inadequate and ineffective, in fact, rather than making a serious prevention, the intervention is carried out only when the object has now been stolen and an attempt is made to recover it. Prevention must take on a primary character as a strategy against art crime and criminology can offer a fundamental contribution at a cognitive and operational level to find a solution to the problem. Criminological analysis, as well as deepening knowledge of the various aspects of this phenomenon, can provide innovative methods that can help in planning new strategies and mechanisms of prevention, which are increasingly effective. (S. Ciotti Galletti, 2001)
Security standards and control measures need to be improved and become effective only if all staff in the facilities concerned have been adequately trained to identify objects whose export is illegal, using systems for documenting and classifying goods in the collections, including private ones, using uniform criteria such as those established by the Getty Museum or the C.C. T.P.C.; it is also necessary to buy only objects that have a certain and documented origin by requesting before purchasing a title attesting to the legitimate ownership of the work of art by the seller. Prevention and protection as a control tool is also achieved through initiatives aimed at educating and raising public awareness to form a better perception for the protection of cultural heritage. (A. Di Nicola, E. U. Savona, 1999)
Today some small goals have been reached, in fact some free ports are taking a concrete position to help prevent through stricter regulation the business that has been created around the illicit art market. (S. Koltrowitz, P. Arnold, 2016) The transparency of free ports is a very effective solution and, in response to the negative publicity that has involved some Swiss free ports, the new rules provide for the mandatory inspection of all antiquities marked as works of art entering their warehouses, the registration of their value, origin, owner and the concession to customs to carry out inspections. (S. Hemels, 2017) The main problem is to achieve global transparency and UNESCO has asked member states with free ports to regulate and define their parameters and form customs or police units to monitor and intervene in response to crimes committed in the field of cultural property. (UNESCO, 2017) Some museums, such as the Getty Museum, which in the past had made purchases that could
65 be described as unclear or at least reckless, have also recently adopted a code to prevent the purchase of pieces of uncertain origin. (S. Ciotti Galletti, 2001)
Only relatively recently, at the various national police services and with the help of organizations such as INTERPOL and UNESCO, special structures have been set up to protect cultural assets from theft or to recover them if they have been stolen. In Italy the C.C. T.P.C. publishes bulletins of works of art stolen under the title “Art Held Hostage” which contain the most important works stolen over time and it is distributed to antique dealers, museums, galleries, auction houses, operators and dealers in the art sector and to anyone who requests it, as well as to all police forces and customs. In addition to having an informative function it also has a preventive function, because the presence of a work in the bulletin indicates that it has been stolen and makes it more difficult to invoke the careless purchase or purchase in good faith by buyers. (website C.C. T.P.C., 2019) In Belgium, the traffic of works of art is constantly increasing and in order to deal with this emergency, the investigating authorities have decided to set up a central unit at the Commissariat Gènèral de la Police Judiciaire in Brussels. This unit is composed of officers specialized in cultural heritage and constantly updated through training courses; investigators collect centrally all data relating to theft and illegal movement of cultural goods, coordinate prevention activities, cooperate with OIPC-INTERPOL and establish working relations with the various institutions such as museums, ministries, etc. Since 1993, a computerized archive connected with the Institut Royal pour le Patrimoine Artistique has been operative, where all information or requests coming from foreign countries and diffused through INTERPOL are inserted. In France, to promote the protection and the recovery of stolen objects, there is the Office Central pour la Rèpression du Vol d’Oeuvres et d’Object d’Art (OCRVOOA), which uses the computer program TREIMA; in this archive, information on the thefts that have taken place is stored in the form of cards divided into main ones and contains information on the crime committed and secondary ones concerning a specific category of objects. Each card is completed by a photograph and the works of art are described according to their characteristics in a simple but precise way. In England, investigators use the ALR (Antique Loss Register), this archive is the result of collaboration between insurance companies and the art world, is operational in London, New York and Perth and includes about 45,000 stolen items and entries in the catalog are derived from news reported by various police departments, Scotland Yard, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and INTERPOL as well as insurers, experts and individual citizens. In Czech Republic, until 1989, export regulations were particularly strict and 66 rigorous controls at external borders were carried out; following the fall of communism, the country had to face two negative consequences: on the one hand it has become a transit territory for art objects from eastern countries such as Poland and Russia headed for Western Europe, on the other hand it has suffered an increase in theft of works of art. To deal with this situation in 1991 the Ministers of the Interior and Culture have set up the PSEUD (Portál systému evidence uměleckých děl Policie ČR), an electronic system based on the structure of the Crigen/Art form, which combines text and image. In Poland, thefts in recent years have multiplied so much that they have assumed enormous proportions, this situation is due mainly to the lack of modern protection tools and despite the successes achieved through the cooperation of international police, strict laws and control of the national market, the illegal export does not decrease. The situation is similar in Russia and in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States where the theft of cultural goods, especially icons, has increased considerably. In Croatia, the rapid development of tourism has been the main cause of the significant growth in theft of art objects, but we must not forget the multitude of historical and artistic objects that disappeared during the war: priceless works of art were stolen from numerous abandoned, damaged or destroyed sites. To recover the stolen property, cooperation was established between INTERPOL’s national central office in Zagreb, the Police force and the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Property. On the American continent, Canada and the United States established the ROSA (Register of Stolen Art and Artefacts) system in 1983 to protect their cultural heritage; this central archive built by Canadian INTERPOL serves to collect texts and images used to document thefts, forgeries and the recovery of art objects under the 1970 UNESCO Convention. The data entered is based on information that comes directly from the news of the Secretary General of INTERPOL, police reports, reports from theft victims or insurance companies. There is no time limit within which a card is stored, the file is not closed until the stolen object has been found or its search is revoked. ROSA information is non-confidential, can be consulted by both the police and the public and news is sent monthly to museums, galleries, auction houses and retailers. In the United States, the first structure that has dealt with the fight against illicit trafficking in works of art was the New York Police Department, which in 1972 established the Art Identification Team and during the same period, also in New York, the most committed artistic circles have promoted the IFAR (International Foundation for Art Research), an organization that has created an archive of stolen cultural goods and an authentication service; every month a periodical is published containing a list of stolen goods
67 and the reporting of cases of counterfeiting. IFAR maintains stable relationships and exchanges of information with major UK insurance companies and INTERPOL. In 1979, the FBI created the National Stolen Art File, a permanent computerized archive of stolen cultural assets consisting of news from local bodies and the FBI itself and combined with visual support. In Africa, OIPC-INTERPOL, through its central offices in Nairobi and Bamako in collaboration with ICOM and UNESCO, has provided advice to prepare appropriate regulatory instruments to establish export controls, prevent illegal excavations and regulate the activities of art dealers. (P. Simone, 1998)
3.3.1 The object ID
The object ID system, born from the collaboration between the various cultural institutions, museums and police forces, is a simple and complete method for cataloguing art objects; it is an internationally recognized identity card on which the main indications of the object and a photograph that allows its immediate recognition are shown. The document of the work of art is important in case of loan, sale, request for advice, evaluation, verification of value and facilitates the activity of recovery in case of theft.
The importance of documentation is crucial not only for the recovery of stolen goods, but also for their return. The police have in their custody many objects recovered during their operations, but these are not accompanied by any identification document, such as the object id, so they cannot be returned to their rightful owners. (J. Sanchez Cordero, 2012)
See the appendix B illustrating the DOCUMENT OF THE WORK OF ART – OBJECT ID.
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3.4 Operational activity of the Carabinieri Command - Protection of cultural heritage
Every year thanks to the operational activity carried out by the C.C. T.P.C. many works of art that have been stolen are found and returned to their rightful owners. In order to recover these works is necessary a careful investigative analysis; finding an object of art is very problematic: the thefts committed in the past are difficult to solve because their tracks are lost in time, the most recent thefts are equally complicated because the technologies and means available to thieves facilitate the movement making disappear quickly the tracks. When a theft is reported, it is very likely that the stolen work has already been transported outside the State borders, despite the considerable difficulties associated with these events, the discovery and recovery of stolen goods, thanks to the action of the C.C. T.P.C., are many. The C.C. T.P.C. carries out various activities which can be divided into three main groups: preventive and control activities, repressive activities and recovery activities. Preventive and control activities include all the controls carried out at museums, libraries, archives, archaeological sites, antiques shops as well as all the controls carried out through the database of cultural assets unlawfully stolen. In particular, the activity is concentrated in the areas most affected by crimes against cultural property.
Table 6: Preventive and control activities of the C.C. T.P.C.
Year Museums, Archaeological Antiques, Markets and Database libraries and sites commercial antiques fairs archives and private establishments 2010 772 1,248 2,510 453 82,896 2011 728 1,409 2,529 597 75,311 2012 775 1,482 2,846 569 171,055 2013 688 1,685 3,269 606 366,931 2014 696 1,686 2,915 538 183,877 2015 562 1,252 2,081 524 28,477 2016 416 1,232 2,122 500 40,187 2017 329 1,282 1,861 478 52,849
Source: Table based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C., own table elaboration.
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Illegal trafficking of cultural goods through the web is the new way to market cultural goods; generic or sector-specific websites are used to replace traditional trade through internet. The objects marketed through the web are generally small and medium sized items that can be easily sent by post. However, it must be said that some of these items are offered by people who are totally unaware of the value of the piece they are trying to sell. Having understood the potential that the web offers, for several years the C.C. T.P.C. has started to exercise a careful monitoring control and thanks to this careful analysis over the years have been recovered little more than 17,000 objects. A factor to emphasize is that there have been no recoveries related to fakes and paintings in the first two years considered while in 2015 and 2016 there is a progressive increase.
Table 7: Number of assets identified and seized on websites in 2013-2016.
Year 2013 2014 2015 2016 Archeology 514 57 154 177 Counterfeits No data No data 20 104 Papers and books 5,500 639 17 35 Numismatics 6,776 255 517 2,326 Painting No data No data 4 11 Findings 12,790 951 712 2,653
Source: Database of the C.C T.P.C. operational activity 2013-2016.
As far as repressive activity is concerned, it is possible to underline that the main types of crime prosecuted are theft, receiving stolen goods, illegal excavation, counterfeiting of works of art and illegal export. The C.C. T.P.C. and the judicial authorities constantly try to fight and limit these crimes as much as possible through searches and administrative sanctions and as it is possible to see in the graph below the activity generates good results and annually hundreds of works of art are recovered.
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Graph 9: Types of offences prosecuted.
800 753 677 683 700
600 552 514 510 500 424 400 371 275 300 244 215 189 181 198 154 154 200 154 140 102 112 96 113 108 117 88 68 100 67 43 58 48 43 16 37 31 14 0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Theft Receiving of stolen art goods Clandestine excavation Counterfeit Illicit exportation
Source: Graph based on the data collected from the operational activity 2011-2017 of the Carabinieri Command T.P.C., own graph elaboration.
The searches that led to an administrative sanction as it is possible to note from the graph below are decreasing and if we compare those carried out in 2010 with those of 2017 we can see a drop-in penalties of 84.78%. This does not mean that the searches themselves have decreased, in fact in the same years we can see that in 2017 there were 95 more searches than in 2010, but that the arrests to which they led are greater in 2010 (44) than in 2017 (9).
Graph 10: Comparison between searches carried out and administrative penalties applied.
700 588 588 601 600 535 541 532 500 437 425 400
300 230 200 163 146 130 93 100 80 45 35 0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Searches conducted Administrative sanctions
Source: Graph based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the Carabinieri Command TPC, own graph elaboration. 71
As far as the recovery activity is concerned, it is possible to note that in the period examined the most significant total recoveries concerned the sector of antiquities, archives and books (336,987) followed by the archaeological sector (278,728) and the paleontological sector (198,659). In the first sector under analysis, the predominance of the objects found consists of books with a total amount of 298,815 followed by paintings (11,733), miscellaneous objects (4,576), sculptures (1,537) and religious objects (1,170). There is an exception in 2014 in which philatelic objects placed the second place with 12,500 pieces. Speaking of paleontological objects, the year marked by major discoveries is 2013 with 100,615 pieces; comparing this data with the 2017 one, equal to 887 discoveries, it can be seen that the activity has suffered a significant decrease equal to 99.12%. Finally, between 2012 and 2017 the archaeological sector can be divided between the artifact found intact equal to 120,752, those fragmented equal to 88,364 and those numismatic archaeological equal to 69,612.
Table 8: Recovery activities of the C.C. T.P.C. in the period 2012-2017.
Year Antiques, archives Paleontological finds Archeological finds and books 2012 55,227 5,799 75,702 2013 189,587 100,615 68,261 2014 38,488 79,214 17,981 2015 21,509 1,507 11,696 2016 24,570 10,637 58,961 2017 7,606 887 46,127 Total amount 336,987 198,659 278,728
Source: Table based on the data collected from the operational activity 2012-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C., own table elaboration.
Even if the results obtained in the various years vary, the statistical data examined highlight the great work and the numerous activities carried out by the C.C. T.P.C. from which it is also possible to understand the vastness of the phenomenon, the extent to which the artistic and cultural heritage is constantly subjected to criminal aggression and how much their intervention becomes therefore necessary and indispensable.
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3.5 Some examples of cultural heritage recovery operations
Thefts on commissions, archaeological devastation, ruined works because dissected, are all actions that contribute to the loss of information that allow to learn about the ancient world. An archaeological find once removed from its context without the help of an archaeologist loses half of its scientific value and the information it carries. Under criminal law, the archaeological heritage is less protected than private property and the excavation is punished with a simple fine. Moreover, the acquisition of certain finds is not considered an offence in all countries, only in countries such as Italy they are property of the State, for other countries, especially those of transit, are objects of sale and what is found underground is the property of the discoverer.
Thanks to the collaboration of the police, the mediation of embassies, cultural institutions abroad and INTERPOL, it has been possible to bring back to Italy many works of art. In Switzerland and England were found around 2,000 archaeological finds from the Second, Third and Fourth centuries BC while in the United States were found around 100 paintings ranging from 1300 to 1800, over 600 gold, silver and bronze coins, books, miniatures, antique furniture, sculptures and bas-reliefs, all located in galleries, museums and private collections. The C.C. T.P.C. deals with these situations every day and, working in full compliance with the regulations, conducts a careful control on the territory and a valid law enforcement activity that allows the recovery of about 45-48% of what has been illegally stolen both nationally and internationally. (R. Conforti, 2001)
The work and investigations that the C.C. T.P.C. carries out has no comparisons and examples of some recovery operations that will follow, as well as confirming the commitment and determination used to contrast and combat theft of cultural and artistic assets, have also been chosen to highlight and better understand the fate that works of art suffer a face removed from their original location, based on the size and type to which they belong are dissected, divided and scattered throughout the planet.
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The operation “Disiecta Membra”, which in Latin means scattered pieces, is a classic example of what has been said. In 1994 in the cathedral of St. Secondiano in Chiusi, in the province of Siena, an altarpiece of the Sixteenth century by the painter Bernardino Fungai was stolen. The following year some parts of the altarpiece were recovered in an antique shop in the United States, the work had been dismembered and cut out as if the figures that made it up were many small paintings on different boards which were sold as individual parts. This highlights the greater damage to which some works of art can be subjected and the greater difficulty of recovery. In 2008, thanks to a check made on the websites of the major international auction houses by the C.C. T.P.C. have been recognized two of the many panels in which the work was cut that depicted St. Sebastian and St. Catherine. The owner of the two paintings was a wealthy English collector who had bought them at auction in good faith; in 2011 the pieces were returned to Italy. (C. Paolessi, 2016)
Image 2: Altarpiece with Nativity and Saints, 1460-1516.
Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
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The “Epistola de insulis nuper inventis” is a letter in which Christopher Columbus informs the Spanish royal family of his discovery, on October 12, 1492, believing that he had reached the indies and instead arrived in the new world. In 1493 in Rome a German printer printed less than twenty reproductions of the original autograph. In 1992, one of these documents, which passed through Switzerland, arrived at an auction house in the United States and was then sold to a private collector. Following the theft of another copy of the letter of Columbus kept in the National Library of Rome in 2012, investigations began; a copy of the letter was found in the Library of Congress in Washington, it had been donated by a private collector who had bought it from an auction house for $400,000; some technical reports showed that the letter came from the Biblioteca Riccardiana and so it was discovered that the copy kept in Florence was actually a forgery. In 2016 one of Columbus’s letters returned to Italy. (G. Macaluso, 2016)
Image 3: Epistola de insulis nuper inventis, 1493.
Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
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Near Rome at Fiumicino in 2014 during a check was stopped a van carrying plants in the middle of which had been hidden several objects including a marble sculpture of the God Mithras killing a bull. The investigations carried out have identified the site of the clandestine excavation from which the statue was taken, the archaeological site of Tarquinia, thanks to this episode in the archaeological site are made further surveys that lead to the recovery of other fragments that complete the sculptural group. In addition to the important recovery, sometimes the operations lead to other significant discoveries, especially in the archaeological field. This is the case of the Mithra operation conducted by the C.C. T.P.C. which has shown how the cult of the God Mithras in the territory of Tarquinia was already known a century earlier than previously thought. (C. Paolessi, 2016)
Image 4: Mithra killing the bull, Third century A.D.
Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
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Around 1970, the cusp of a sarcophagus depicting a flute player was stolen from the archaeological site of Paestum. To make the find legally enter the international art market, a false documentation was built and produced, describing it as a Macedonian artefact. A rich American oil tanker, a well-known collector, tried to establish and ascertain the authenticity of the piece as well as the legality of purchase and thanks to his collaboration with U.S. ICE (United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the C.C. T.P.C. has been possible to reconstruct the path and the origin and in 2015 the cusp has returned to Italy. The positive factor, which should be emphasized in this case, is the fact that fortunately there are people who, thanks to their morality, respect and protect the value that cultural assets represent. (J. A. Fratticci, 2016)
Image 5: Cuspid of Pestan tomb with a representation of a flute player and an old satyr, Fourth century B.C.
Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
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In the province of Lecce, a fisherman had found a gold ring on some rocks from the Byzantine era and to understand the value of the object he had found, he had shown photos to a university professor who, after ascertaining the authenticity and importance of the find, tried in vain to convince the fisherman to hand it over to the Superintendence for the Archaeological Heritage of Puglia. Informed the C.C. T.P.C. of the incident after a search of the fisherman’s house, the ring was recovered. The ring had belonged to a high Byzantine official named Basil who used it to sign his documents as a guarantee of authenticity. The image imprinted on the wax was a Christ framed by a Greek inscription bearing the name and title of the official. (F. Pagano, 2016)
Image 6: Ring seal with Christ Pantocrator and inscription in Greek translatable as ‘Christ Save Me’, Byzantine Age.
Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
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Starting undoubtedly from the fact that the operations of recovery of works of art are linked to crimes that cause damage to the artistic heritage in the next two cases, it is possible to notice the absurdity of how the events took place.
In 2006 in the Basilica of Montefiascone in the province of Viterbo, while the church was being set up for a wedding, at some point the Twelfth-century stoup located at the entrance to the nave had disappeared. The Romanesque capital was found eight years later by the C.C. T.P.C. in a warehouse owned by a Swiss collector. (C. Paolessi, 2016)
Image 7: Capital with male figures between columns, reused as a reliquary of St. Flavian and then as a stoup, Twelfth century.
Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
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In 2013, at the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome, on Easter Day, hooded thieves armed with axes and smoke generators stole 27 jewels of the Nineteenth century from the Castellani collection for a value of 3,000,000 Euros. The theft had been commissioned by a Roman antiquarian at the request of a wealthy Russian lady who could not buy the jewelry because she was immediately identified as the client during the first days of investigation. Three years after the C.C. T.P.C. succeeds in intercepting the thieves who had committed the theft and, in the meantime, had managed to organize another illegal sale, but also this time the sale did not take place because the receivers, having realized that they were monitored, fled by car. Pursued by the Carabinieri in order to escape, they began to throw out the windows part of the jewels; the gold scattered on the road was immediately recovered and even if the thieves managed to escape, they were still tracked down and reported. (J. A. Fratticci, 2016)
Image 8: Castellani Goldsmiths (27 jewels), Nineteenth century.
Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
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The C.C. T.P.C. works to respect and protect not only the assets that belong to the Italian national heritage but also protects those belonging to other countries, an example of which are the investigations conducted in 2008 by the C.C. T.P.C., which led to the seizure of numerous archaeological and historical-artistic assets from different places. Some Italian citizens were involved in these crimes. Among the objects, was found a funerary aedicule without documents proving its legitimate origin. After several investigations in 2011, the find was examined by an official of the Directorate General of Antiquities of Syria, which showed that the find was original and came from the archaeological site of Palmira; this type of relief made of limestone and dated between the First and Second century AD was used to close the niches in the richest tombs in the Valley of the Tombs of Palmira. Since it was illegally exported, it was ordered to be returned to Syria. (G. Mazza, 2016)
Image 9: Palmyra, Valley of the Tombs, funerary relief depicting three characters (perhaps the father in the middle, with two children on either side), First-Second century AD.
Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016. 81
In 2016, the C.C. T.P.C., the General Direction of Museums and the National Gallery of Ancient Art of Palazzo Barberini in Rome, have set up an exhibition of recovered works of art called “The Weapon for art and legality”. In the exhibition spaces were exposed objects of various kinds: archaeological, pictorial, booklet and sacred; these works ranging from antiquity to the Twentieth century are the testimony of European culture and if they had not been recovered could have disappeared forever. The exhibition project was the concrete testimony of the work and results obtained by the C.C. T.P.C., the presentation of the recoveries made at different times has underlined the continuous aggression to which the cultural heritage is continuously subjected and how it is necessary a constant surveillance. In the space of this path there was no lack of information on how to defend and protect oneself, to know what to do or not to do and the “guidelines” of the C.C. T.P.C. helps not only museums and institutions but also private citizens. The exhibition offered a clear and original impact and more dynamic information on the facts involving the artistic and cultural heritage, inviting citizens to reflect on how illegality causes a loss for all communities. (A. Pasqua Recchia, 2016)
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CONCLUSION
Cultural heritage has always been subjected to all sorts of aggression for a lot of reasons, cultural property has been destroyed by war, stolen and sold illegally for profit, used as a source of investment or as a commodity to clean up illicit proceeds, but it has also been stolen by those who love art to create collections for their own exclusive benefit, for example all the works of art that Hitler and Göring had appropriated during the Second World War. The artistic and cultural heritage must be defended with perseverance and commitment by all those who respect art both for its beauty and for its importance; in the thesis in my thesis I have tried to bring out how the European Union, the C.C. T.P.C., INTERPOL and the various other institutions involved with their work, in addition to defending and protecting the artistic heritage, are working together to achieve this goal.
Every nation has the duty to protect its own artistic and cultural heritage because it is the testimony of its history, its culture and the growth of its people and this right of belonging is undeniable, but at the same time it must also be seen by all, everyone has the right to enjoy it; defending art also means defending the whole of history, a heritage that must be shared and handed down. We want to live in a globalized world, but we do not want to share what characterizes us and allows us to make ourselves known, culture is the most powerful weapon there has ever been and using it means uniting peoples, learning to understand and appreciate the diversity and characteristics that distinguish us. Knowing the cultural heritage of other peoples and making our own known is a peaceful and intelligent way of breaking down all the prejudices and barriers that have been created precisely because human nature, when it does not understand something, is afraid of it and rejects it.
In order for this to be achieved, cultural goods are the most suitable instrument and so why not use them for exchanges, not only temporary because unfortunately, given the limited time of the exhibition can not be accessible to everyone, but create museums around the world with permanent exhibitions of works of art that come from all over the world? Each state, while always remaining the owner of the lent objects, would contribute to spreading a knowledge of art, to create a respect for the artistic and cultural heritage; developing a collective awareness serves not only to make people appreciate art beyond its economic value, but also to defend it by reducing the actions that damage the cultural heritage. Having so many similar objects grouped in a shrine of a single museum is of little use, it does not even
83 make the object observed particularly interesting, instead, if each museum had one of those pieces, not only would it be looked at it more carefully, but it would give millions of people the opportunity to see that discovery, to experience those emotions, to share and learn its history.
When a person enters in the “valley of kings” at the Egyptian Museum of Turin the atmosphere created and those statues so imposing, make that the imagination runs immediately to those times, you feel like spectators who live in the present the past, the feeling that the room transmits is extraordinary. So, why not allow other peoples to live an experience similar to this one with our history and live other ones with the history of other peoples?
Marco Tullio Cicerone said: “Historia vero testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis” (history is a true witness of the times, light of truth, life of memory, teacher of life, messenger of antiquity).
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LIST OF GRAPHS
Graph 1: World trade in art objects. Source: graph of my processing. Graph 2: Increase in exports to countries bordering Syria and Iraq. Source: graph of my processing. Graph 3: The main art free ports in the world. Source: graph of my processing.
Graph 4: Main works of art illegally stolen in Italy and not yet recovered. Source: Graph of my processing based on the data collected from the bulletins of the C.C. T.P.C. operational activity 2009-2018 (numbers of the C.C. T.P.C. bulletins from 31 to 40).
Graph 5: Clandestine excavations. Source: Carabinieri Command Database, Cultural Heritage Protection Division, operational activity, 2016.
Graph 6: Total theft of cultural property in Italy. Source: Carabinieri Command Database, Cultural Heritage Protection Division, operational activity, 2016.
Graph 7: Total seized forgeries per year. Source: Graph of my processing based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the Carabinieri Command T.P.C.
Graph 8: Economic estimate of seized forgeries. Source: Graph of my processing based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C.
Graph 9: Types of offences prosecuted. Source: Graph of my processing based on the data collected from the operational activity 2011-2017 of the Carabinieri Command T.P.C.
Graph 10: Comparison between searches carried out and administrative penalties applied. Source: Graph of my processing based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C.
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Main works of art illegally stolen in Italy and not yet recovered. Source: data collected from the bulletins of the C.C. T.P.C. operational activity 2009-2018 (numbers of the C.C. T.P.C. bulletins from 31 to 40).
Table 2: Increase of theft in Italian regions. Source: Carabinieri Command Database, Cultural Heritage Protection Division, operational activity, 2016.
Table 3: Reduction of theft in Italian regions. Source: Carabinieri Command Database, Cultural Heritage Protection Division, operational activity, 2016.
Table 4: Percentage change in economic estimate of seized forgeries. Source: Table of my processing based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C.
Table 5: Comparison of the economic estimate of the archaeological sector with the contemporary sector. Source: Table of my processing based on the data collected from the operational activity 2015-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C.
Table 6: Preventive and control activities of the C.C. T.P.C. Source: Graph of my processing based on the data collected from the operational activity 2010-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C.
Table 7: Number of assets identified and seized on websites in 2013-2016. Source: Database of the C.C T.P.C. operational activity 2013-2016.
Table 8: Recovery activities of the C.C. T.P.C. in the period 2012-2017. Source: Table of my processing based on the data collected from the operational activity 2012-2017 of the C.C. T.P.C.
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LIST OF IMAGES
Image 1: Before and after the Taliban’s distraction of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan. Source: Source: Corriere della Sera, 2001.
Image 2: Altarpiece with Nativity and Saints, 1460-1516. Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
Image 3: Epistola de insulis nuper inventis, 1493. Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
Image 4 Mithra killing the bull, Third century A.D. Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
Image 5: Cuspid of Pestan tomb with a representation of a flute player and an old satyr, Fourth century B.C. Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
Image 6: Ring seal with Christ Pantocrator and inscription in Greek translatable as ‘Christ Save Me’, Byzantine Age. Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
Image 7: Capital with male figures between columns, reused as a reliquary of St. Flavian and then as a stoup, Twelfth century. Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
Image 8: Castellani Goldsmiths (27 jewels), Nineteenth century. Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
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Image 9: Palmyra, Valley of the Tombs, funerary relief depicting three characters (perhaps the father in the middle, with two children on either side), First-Second century AD. Source: The ‘Carabinieri’ for art and legality. Stories about recoveries and cultural heritage: operations of the ‘Carabinieri’ Department for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage, 2016.
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS:
ALR Antique Loss Register
ASF Automated Search Facility
ASF Automated Search Facility
C.C. T.P.C. Comando Carabinieri - Tutala Patrimonio Culturale
EC European Community
EEC European Economic Community
EU European Union
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation
FOJ Federal Office of Justice
GDF Guardia di Finanza
ICCROM International Centre for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage
ICOM International Council of Museum
ICOMOS International Council on Monuments and Sites;
ICPC International Criminal Police Commission
ICPO INTERPOL International Criminal Police Organization
IFAR International Foundation for Art Research
INTERPOL International Criminal Police Organization
ISIS Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
ISTAT Istituto nazionale di statistica
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MiBAC Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali
NCO National central office
OCRVOOA Office Central pour la Rèpression du Vol d’Oeuvres et d’Object d’Art
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
PSEUD Portál systému evidence uměleckých děl Policie ČR
PSYCHE Protection SYstem for the Cultural Heritage
ROSA Register of Stolen Art and Artefacts
TEFAF The European Fine Art Fair
TFEU Treaty on the functioning of the European Union
U.S. ICE United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement
UN United Nations
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNIDROIT International Institute for the Unification of Private Law
UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
UNSCR United Nations Security Council Resolution
WCO World Customs Organization
WOA Works of Art
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LIST OF APPENDICES:
Appendix A – Table 1: Main works of art illegally stolen in Italy and not yet recovered.
Appendix B – DOCUMENT OF THE WORK OF ART - OBJECT ID
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Appendix A
Table 1: Main works of art illegally stolen in Italy and not yet recovered.
Year Archeology Graphic/painting/ Religious/ Sculptur mosaic devotional 2009 9 67 9 7 2010 5 71 9 5 2011 8 57 16 10 2012 7 63 12 9 2013 5 49 5 9 2014 10 55 14 5 2015 6 33 15 36 2016 17 60 12 1 2017 6 24 10 5 2018 6 25 4 3
Source: data collected from the bulletins of the C.C. T.P.C. operational activity 2009-2018 (numbers of the C.C. T.P.C. bulletins from 31 to 40).
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Appendix B
DOCUMENT OF THE WORK OF ART - OBJECT ID
Photography of the object
Photographs of an art object represent a fundamental step in the process of identifying and recovering stolen art objects. In addition to global views of the object, it is recommended to take photographs that highlight, in the foreground, inscriptions, special signs and traces of damage and repair. It is recommended, if possible, to include in the image a metric indicator or an object of recognizable size.
N.B. paste the photograph in this box below
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS: Object type What kind of object is it (for example, a painting, a sculpture, a clock, a mirror, etc.)?
Materials and Techniques
What material is the object made of (brass, wood, oil on canvas)? What technique was used (e.g. carving, casting, engraving, etc.)?
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Dimensions
What are the dimensions and/or weight of the object? Obviously, the unit of measurement used must be specified (centimeters, inches) and the size to which the measurement refers (height, width, depth).
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Inscriptions and special signs
Are there any particular signs or inscriptions on the object (e.g., a signature, a dedication, a name, author’s trademarks, purity marks, property marks, etc.)?
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Distinguishing factors and/or Cataloguing
Does the object have physical characteristics that may facilitate its identification (e.g. damage, repairs, or manufacturing defects, etc.)?
Is the object catalogued (for example, a work catalogued by the Archaeological Superintendence of Rome with a number on the date)?
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Title of the project
Is there a title by which the object is known and identifiable (e.g., the Mona Lisa, the David, etc.)?
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Subject
What is the subject represented (for example, a landscape, a battle, a woman with a child, the Nativity, etc.)?
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Date or period
What is the date of the object (e.g. 1893, early 17th century, late Bronze Age, etc.)?
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Author and/or cultural field
Are you aware of the identity of the author? It can be an individual (e.g. Giovanni Bellini), a company (e.g. Ceramiche Faenza), a cultural group (e.g. Venetian School, Carlo Maratta’s follower, Francesco Solimena’s circle, attributed to Giovanni Crivelli) or cultural relevance (e.g. Greek and Roman manufacture, etc.).
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Short description of the object This description may contain any other data which may facilitate the identification of the object (e.g. color and shape of the object, place of origin, etc.). ______
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ONCE FILLED IN, KEEP THIS FORM SAFE
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