VATICAN CITY Some prelates found him the other evening, suspicious because he hadn’t answered the phone all day. He was lying on the bed, lifeless, in pajamas, with his feet dangling and, at first glance, he seemed perhaps intent on getting up. Monsignor Michele Basso, an elderly canon of St. Peter’s, died suddenly in his apartment close to the Vatican basilica, presumably suffering from a heart attack. For some time he had been accusing aches and pains due to his advanced age.
The departure of this singular art collector drags with him to the grave the mysteries associated with an incredible and fabulous deposit of works he owns. Dozens and dozens of ancient pieces on which heavy suspicions, internal investigations and of course silent embarrassment on the part of the Vatican authorities weigh because to date the origin of those legacies has never been known. Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, a Franciscan, new archpriest of the basilica for just over a year, inherits a problem that before him had tried to manage his predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Comastri, who was quickly retired by Francis after a series of administrative bungles .
THE TREASURE
The fabulous Basso collection had been packed and secured inside about thirty fireproof boxes placed in a super safe place. They were sealed with the authorization of the Secretariat of State and placed in a room under the Dome. Inside there are about seventy pieces of archaeological material, marble and wooden statues, paintings on canvas, copper engraved tables and sketches on paper.
Probably the most burning find of all is a wonderful copy dating from the early twentieth century of the famous Euphronios Crater, the Etruscan original of which is kept in the Museum of Villa Giulia. After it was stolen by grave robbers in 1971, illegally exported to the USA and purchased by the New York Metropolitan, the crater had been at the center of a diplomatic tug of war with Italy.
The copy in the hands of the Vatican risks calling everything into question because it would refute the date of the discovery of the original that the Metropolitan had to return. If the real crater was only found in 1971 in a clandestine excavation near Cerveteri, how is it possible that there is a copy made at the end of the twentieth century in the Vatican? A yellow within a yellow that will sooner or later have to be unraveled by the Secretariat of State. The treasure chest locked in the voluminous green boxes of different sizes had been viewed at the time by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Then the question was silenced while Monsignor Basso continued to repeat, to those who asked him for information on the origin of that good thing, that everything was in order.
He said that he had managed to accumulate it with dedication since the beginning of the nineties but already around the 2000s those works had given him headaches of a legal nature. In that period, in fact, he had ended up at the center of an investigation by the Rome prosecutor’s office which was then archived and ended up in nothing. Since then, cyclically, in a discreet way, attempts have been made in the Vatican to find the key to the problem and understand the origin of that deposit. In the meantime, considering its commercial value, he had taken steps to make a sort of inventory and store it without making too much publicity in one of the less accessible areas of the basilica. If when Basso was alive no one wanted to address the subject, even more so now that the prelate is no longer with us. The questions all remain on the table.
THE DOUBTS
Were those goods part of private collections inherited by Basso? Were they regular purchases made over time, or were they still bequests from convents, religious institutions, gifts received from benefactors or never cataloged ecclesiastical goods? There are canvases from the school of Mattia Preti, sketches by Pietro da Cortona, wooden tables by Guercino, Golzius, Pasqualotto, as well as seventeenth-century wooden sculptures and even a white marble sculpture inspired by Michelangelo’s Prisoners. Authentic canvases, however, also mixed with various fakes, made by very skilled forgers who worked in Rome. Among the objects there are also several copies of Etruscan and Roman vases reproduced so well that they seem authentic, including the famous copy of the Euphronios Vase with a commercial value of 15,000 euros. In Rome towards the end of the 19th century it was almost a fashion to reproduce Roman or Etruscan artifacts in every little detail. It was a skill of some master craftsmen that gave birth to forgeries so extraordinary that they too have a thriving international market.
Two years ago Pope Francis had given instructions to start an internal inspection on the management of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, entrusting it to an ecclesiastic of his strict trust. When asked about the paintings in the Messaggero, the canon don Michele Basso said: «I donated everything to the Fabbrica di San Pietro. Now I am no longer the owner. I don’t know anything about it anymore.” But how did he accumulate this treasure? «It’s like finding yourself with so many shoes in the closet. Some were bought and others were given away.
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