Carabinieri protects cultural heritage
The Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Florence and Udine delivered 21 documents from the correspondence of the Honorable Altiero Spinelli with the institutions of the time, to the Historical Archives of the European Union of Villa Salviati in Florence during a ceremony which took place was held on 7 May 2024 in the presence of the director and commanders of the Carabinieri Units for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage of Florence and Udine.
The investigation, which led to the seizure of this important group of letters, started in 2021 by the TPC military of Florence who had received an investigative activation after the sale of a rare letter on online auction channels had been identified typed with autographed signature of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Aldo Moro, with Altiero Spinelli, dated 01 August 1973. The civil code establishes, in fact, that the archives and documents of public bodies are subject to the regime of public property and, therefore, they are inalienable. Consequently, these documents fall within the regulatory provisions of cultural assets belonging to the State or Public Bodies.
The reconstruction of the sales channel led the Carabinieri dell’Arte to identify, in a forty-year-old resident in the province of Pordenone, the person who had put the letter in question up for sale and, once the local Public Prosecutor’s Office was interested, it was issued in a search and seizure decree against him for the crime of receiving stolen goods. The man was very cooperative, confirming that he, as a fan of autographed letters, had made the purchase through e-commerce channels and at used item markets.
The soldiers of the TPC Unit of Udine therefore executed the provision by seizing the requested letter and, at the same time, noted the presence of other similar documentation, all belonging to important correspondence concerning ministries and other public bodies. In particular, what stands out as a common factor are the 21 documents written by Altiero Spinelli, or directed to him, with particular regard to his functions carried out within what, at that time, was still the EEC (European Economic Community).
Italian politician who died in 1986, Altiero Spinelli is considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union. Known for his writings which influenced the process of post-war European integration, he is the author of the “Manifesto for a free and united Europe”, better known as the “Ventotene Manifesto”, which he wrote in 1941 with the contribution by Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni during the period in which he was confined on the Pontine island. He was a deputy of the Republic and a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1986, carrying out various roles in the field of European policies.
In the subsequent analysis phase, the letters were viewed by the director of the Historical Archives of the European Union based at the European University Institute of Villa Salviati in Florence, who reported that the documents are certainly original, even if unpublished, and are related to the Spinelli Fund held at that Institution restricted for the recognition of historical and cultural interest. All documents and correspondence with the offices of the European institutions must be stored in the Villa Salviati archive where they must be sent 30 years after they were produced. The documents returned certainly constitute material stolen illicitly but on a date and in circumstances impossible to ascertain, given the time that has elapsed.
In addition to the documents attributable to correspondence with the MP, another 5 letters were seized which concerned discussions with the Municipality of Treviso and with some military commands in the area. These state documents are intended to be delivered to the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendency of the Veneto of Venice, competent for the Veneto Region according to the same release from seizure provision issued by the Pordenone Prosecutor’s Office.
The activity carried out by the Florence and Udine Units fits organically into the investigative coordination action aimed at combating crimes relating to cultural heritage which, in this case, allowed the recovery of precious archival material of European importance .
