June 19, 2024, of Roberto Pomi
Viterbo’s historical-artistic heritage, there is a lack of resources to protect it from theft and disappearances over the years. Beware of the fragilities of the Civic
Home page – VITERBO – The frescoes have disappeared from Palazzo Spreca and have been sold at auction. Perhaps other frescoes taken from other places in the city of the popes also ended up on the auction market. The fact is that you have to pay a lot of attention because ancient vases, paintings, frescoes are things that are worth a lot and money can tempt and make your head spin.
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VITERBO – Auction houses sell many historical-artistic pieces every year at prices that are sometimes dizzying to collectors. Etruscan vases that are sold for hundreds of thousands of euros, Renaissance paintings, frescoes torn from historic buildings and churches. There’s everything at auctions. And auction houses are not only in Italy, where everything will certainly be bulletproof with regards to compliance with the laws. They are also found in other countries around the world where perhaps some breach of the rules can happen. The fact is that Italy has been plundered for decades. We wonder if Viterbo was ever plundered.
The frescoes disappeared from Palazzo Spreca and were sold at auction. Perhaps other frescoes taken from other places in the city of the popes also ended up on the auction market. The fact is that you have to pay a lot of attention because ancient vases, paintings, frescoes are things that are worth a lot and money can tempt and make your head spin.
There is a public asset that belongs to all citizens to be carefully controlled. Sometimes there are fragile situations that risk making the controls falter. What has happened in recent decades at the Rossi Danielli Civic Museum certainly involves risk factors. We are talking about a meso that has been without a director for many years, a fundamental figure also for control.
From what we have managed to understand, inventories have not been carried out for some time and, from what we understand, no one has bothered to check whether everything is there or not for a long time. We have discovered in recent months that for many years traders renting in municipal premises have not paid the rent. Nobody has told him anything yet. Someone stole from the community. What if it had also happened on our historical-artistic assets? Wouldn’t it be not only appropriate but necessary to also check, after so many years of carelessness, that heritage of the Viterbo people found in the museum in Piazza Crispi?
At the very least it would be appropriate for Palazzo dei Priori to start asking itself the problem, understand that the issue is of collective interest and therefore take action to provide an answer in such a way as to be able to say to the people of Viterbo: after so many years of no one having done it, we have verified and everything is in order. At that point we could breathe a sigh of relief and understand that we are a city of honest people where no one took advantage of a fragile situation that could leave room for some “theft” of material. We believe that asking for verification is the right of a newspaper that wants to defend the territory and the interests of citizens. Maybe even the Superintendency could ask some questions, ask for some documents and go and make sure that everything is in order. Then perhaps it would also be time to appoint a new director as well as verify the inventory and make a new one.
