Don Michele Basso he was a great lover of art history, he had written pages and pages on Basilica of Saint Peter and on the Vatican Grottoes where Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has also rested since Thursday. He was also a great art collector: in his life he had collected a whole collection of sculptures, archaeological finds and paintings closed in 30 fireproof boxes and arranged in a room under the dome. Monsignor Basso was found dead in its rooms close to the Vatican basilica, suffering from a heart attack. For some time he had been accusing aches and pains due to his advanced age. He brings with him a series of mysteries linked to that incredible collection which had already sparked curiosity and some headaches for the Holy See in the past.
How had he put together that little treasure? “It’s like finding yourself with so many shoes in the closet. Some have been bought, others given away”, he told the Messenger who today brings to light the mysterious story in the Vatican rooms. According to reports from the newspaper the fabulous collection has about seventy pieces including archaeological material, marble and wooden statues, paintings on canvas, copper engraved plates and sketches on paper. It would be canvases from the school of Mattia Prettisketches of Peter of Cortonawooden tables of Guercinyou hate Golzius, by Pasqualottobesides that wooden sculptures of the seventeenth century and even a white marble sculpture inspired by the Michelangelo’s prisons. Authentic canvases but also mixed with several fakes, made by very skilled forgers who worked in Rome especially at the time of the Grand Tour, when the city was an obligatory destination for art history enthusiasts from all over the world who often wanted to bring home faithful copies of those works. And a real tradition developed among the craftsmen who managed to reproduce very faithful copies. Among the objects in the collection there would also be several copies of Etruscan vasesand Romans reproduced so well that they seem authentic including the famous copy of Euphronios crater.
And it is precisely the latter that is shrouded in mystery. It’s about a very faithful copy of the large Etruscan vase dating back to 600 years before Christ. The original is in the Etruscan Art Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome, returned in 2006 by the Metropolitan Museum of New York, because it is the result of illegal export. Monsignor Basso’s copy would have been made in the early 1900s, although the discovery officially took place in the necropolis of Cerveteri in 1971. How could a copy of an object not yet found exist at that time? Could an expert like Monsignor Basso not have noticed? A yellow in the yellow. The Messenger writes that after it was stolen by grave robbers in 1971, illegally exported to the USA and purchased by the Metropolitan of New York, the Crater had been at the center of a diplomatic tussle with Italy.
On the collection, as Il Messaggero always writes, at the beginning of this century even an investigation was opened by the Rome prosecutor’s office, which was later archived, Basso donated everything to the Vatican and the controversy ended. And throughout his life he continued to repeat to those who asked him that everything was in order, the result of a painstaking work of dedication and research that began in the 90s. A novel story between mysteries, works of art and Vatican rooms.
Graduated in Philosophy, born in 1990, she is passionate about politics and technology. She is in love with Naples of which she tries to tell the many facets, telling people’s stories, trying to stay away from stereotypes.
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Elena DelMastro
