D’Annunzio’s letter returned to the National Library of Rome – Books

(ANSA) – ROME, MARCH 19 – The Carabinieri of the Antiques Section of the Operational Department of the Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage have returned to the National Central Library of Rome an autograph letter by Gabriele D’Annunzio, stolen over 10 years ago. It is a manuscript, dated November 18, 1926, made up of 3 ivory colored sheets, measuring 32.5 x 24.5 cm, all bearing the heading with the logo “SQVADRA DI SAN MARCO – TI CON NV, NV CON YOU”.

In the letter, the Vate addresses “To my dear friend”, as reported on the unrecovered envelope, identified in the person of Giovanni Rizzo according to investigative findings, and writes: “I am enclosing a telegram with the indications of the arrival, in Modane, of Dr. Michele Mendelsohn, my doctor friend from Paris. Who comes to see me; and brings me some art objects belonging to my Parisian house, still left there. They are destined for the Vittoriale degli Italiani”.

The letter was returned to the director of the Library, Stefano Campagnolo, by the commander of the Antiques Section of the Tpc Operations Department, Ten. Martina De Vizio.

The document had been seized by the art carabinieri from a private collector in Viterbo, who had put it up for sale on the web after purchasing it a few years earlier at the Roman antiques market. The discovery was made possible thanks to constant monitoring on the pages dedicated to the sale of art goods. Probably the letter had been stolen from the National Central Library of Rome before 2012. The men of the Arma traced the identity of the seller and prevented the missive from being lost again in a sale in the rich collectors’ market.

The archivists of the National Central Library of Rome found traces of abrasion of the ink stamps affixed to D’Annunzio’s papers and several abrasions and erasures of the inventory numbering reported on each page. The identification was favored by the cataloguing, inventory and digitization activity carried out by the Library in the period preceding the theft and by the comparison of the images with those contained within the “Database of illicitly stolen cultural heritage”, managed exclusively by the Tpc Command, the largest database with several million registered and digitized cultural assets.

(HANDLE).