The Medici Conspiracy

by Peter Watson

  From time to time, the museum has associated itself with lofty sentiments. Philippe de Montebello, the current director of the Metropolitan, lectures widely to groups across the United States, giving a talk titled, “Museums: Why Should We Care?” His lecture prospectus reads:In the midst of global turmoil, why is art important? Is it indispensable? Does it bring order to the world? Does it give us the ultimate assurance of renewal and survival? How does one explain the sense of outrage and loss expressed by people worldwide over the destruction of treasures in Afghanistan and the subsequent looting in Baghdad? . . . In this new lecture . . . Mr. De Montebello . . . shows us how art is a tangible vestige of past civilizations....

  Given those sentiments and the museum’s distinguished history, it is doubly regrettable that in the field of antiquities, the Metropolitan’s record has been dismal. In fact, as the Euphronios krater affair showed, the Metropolitan’s behavior on occasions can be positively lamentable. And it is not as if the Euphronios affair was an isolated case. When it comes to antiquities, the Metropolitan seems to lose its head.

  The first noteworthy episode concerned the so-called Bury St. Edmunds Cross. This was an exquisitely carved ivory cross, a little less than two feet tall and just over a foot wide, and covered with tiny Romanesque figures and inscriptions in Latin and Greek. It was allegedly dated to the twelfth century, though there were scholars who doubted its authenticity. The cross appeared on the international art market, in a bank vault in Zurich, as early as the mid-1950s, but Thomas Hoving saw it in 1961, by which time it was already on offer to the British Museum for £200,000. The British Museum delayed, however, because it was concerned about whether the man offering the cross really had good title to it. His name was Ante Topic-Mimara and he was said to be a “former Tito partisan,” a politically active Yugoslav, though according to two German journalists of Der Spiegel, Topic, alias Mimara, had been head of the Yugoslav intelligence services in Germany and then, because he was a “museum custodian” by profession, had become a member of the Yugoslav Restitution and Reparations Commission in the U.S. Zone. He therefore had wide access to artworks in the process of being returned to their rightful owners after World War II.

  The British Museum asked Topic-Mimara to warrant that he had full title to the cross he was offering to sell, but this was something he steadfastly refused to do. In fact, he always refused to say where he had gotten the cross and for this reason the British Museum deal fell through. One evening, Hoving sat up drinking coffee with Topic-Mimara until, as midnight passed, the deadline expired. Thereupon, he paid over the $500,000-plus that was then the equivalent of £200,000, and the cross went to the Met.

  The second episode, and conceivably the most outrageous antiquities acquisition of the Met, was that of the Lydian Hoard. In 1966, the museum had bought a treasure of gold, silver, bronze, and earthenware objects and wall paintings for $500,000 from the wealthy New York dealer J. J. Klejman, who said he had acquired it earlier from “ignorant” itinerant traders in Europe. He claimed the collection had been mixed with “junk” and was bought in at least two different European cities. Yet archaeologists who were able to see the treasure identified it as coming from ancient Lydia—the western part of modern-day Turkey, and the location of the kingdom of Croesus (as in “rich as Croesus”)—and they believed it to represent the contents of four entire tombs that had been looted near Sardis where, as it happened, Harvard University archaeologists were conducting a legitimate excavation. The hoard sat in the basement of the museum, largely unseen except when Dietrich von Bothmer allowed in a few favored visitors. At one point, he and Hoving placed five silver vessels into an exhibition, wrongly labeled as “Greek,” but no one noticed and they were returned to the basement.

  Inside the museum, however, a memorandum was being circulated. Addressed to President C. Douglas Dillon, Director Hoving, Chief Curator Theodore Rousseau, and von Bothmer, it was written by Oscar White Muscarella, associate curator in the Department of Near Eastern Art (the man who complained about the acquisition of the Euphronios krater), and it was a passionate appeal against the destruction of burial mounds and against the purchase and display of objects lacking a scientific and secure provenance. Muscarella warned that if the museum were to risk exhibiting certain objects in its possession, it might trigger reprisals, “drastic action” against Western archaeologists in certain Middle Eastern countries. He also let it be known that a Turkish journalist had expressed to him an interest in inspecting the objects in the museum’s basement.

  The Turks knew that tumuli (tombs) in the Uşak region of west-central Anatolia had been broken into and looted by villagers. A number of objects were recovered by local police and the tomb robbers interviewed. Rumors about the Metropolitan’s acquisitions began to circulate in the early 1970s, but although the Met’s own documents reveal that the museum recognized the objects as among its greatest acquisitions, the purchase of the collection—essentially intact—was not announced. It was not until some of the pieces were put on permanent display in 1984, as part of the museum’s so-called East Greek Treasure, that Turkish scholars were able to conclude that the objects were those looted from the Uşak tomb. At first the Turks tried to reach a negotiated solution, but their approach was summarily rebuffed. Later the museum tried to resist legal action by the Republic of Turkey, arguing in court that the statute of limitations had expired. This caused a three-year delay in litigation, but after that time the Met’s arguments were denied and a trial was ordered. During the discovery process, the internal Met documents that were produced were damning. The most shocking were those of the Acquisitions Committee in connection with the second of the museum’s three principal purchases, which noted, among other things, that the objects being acquired were said to come from the same part of Anatolia as those “acquired earlier.” Another key aspect of the discovery process was the opportunity afforded to Turkish and American archaeologists to inspect at first hand the treasures in the Met’s basement. Archaeologists who were familiar with the objects recovered from the tombs in Turkey were allowed to examine, close-up, the vast array of jewelry, ancient tools, wall paintings, silver oinochoe, and marble sphinxes. Among other things, from the measurements they took, they were able to match some of the frescoes in the museum basement to particular holes left on the walls of some of the tombs in Turkey.

  Faced with such incontrovertible evidence, at the end of 1993 the museum caved in and agreed to return the treasure to Turkey without a formal trial. The treasure was returned the following year. But the way the museum had fought this case on a technicality and the fact that its own documents showed it was willing to acquire the objects even when its acquisitions committee knew it was loot left a bad taste. As one individual involved remarked, it was as if those at the Met were behaving like “pirates.”

  There is still a bad taste in many people’s mouths in regard to a different hoard, this time a collection of fifteen pieces of almost priceless Roman silver looted from an important site in Sicily in Italy. The silver includes beautifully decorated bowls, a silver ladle, two silver horns, and a magnificent gilt-silver emblem featuring classical gods in bas-relief. This unique silver is valued in the region of $100 million. The Italian government wants the silver returned, but the Metropolitan, for years, refused to recognize the Italians’ claim, which was backed up by information from a Mafia “snitch” and by the discoveries of a well-known American archaeologist.

  The Met took delivery of the first eight silver and gilt objects in May 1981, to be followed exactly a year later, in May 1982, by six more. The silver, said an official of the museum at the time, came originally from Turkey and had been legally imported from Switzerland. The pieces were published in the museum’s own Bulletin in the summer of 1984.

  Having studied the 1984 bulletin, the Italian archaeological and law enforcement authorities became more and more convinced that the silver had been illegally excavated and smuggled not from Turkey but from Sicily. Conforti felt s
o strongly about this that he had a series of “Wanted” postcards made, one of which depicted some of the silver pieces. Others in the series depicted the so-called Morgantina Venus and the Acrolytes at the Getty (an acrolyte is the marble head—or hands, or feet—added to a statue). Each was laid out like an old-fashioned Wild West “Wanted” poster, reflecting Conforti’s opinion of the morality of certain U.S. museums. His conviction was supported by information obtained by a Sicilian magistrate who, while investigating another case entirely, received the confession of one of the accused, a mafioso called Giuseppe Mascara. Mascara, who had decided to turn informer, described himself as “head” of the Sicilian tombaroli. He confessed that he himself had seen and tried to buy the silver in question but had not managed to clinch the deal. According to him, the Morgantina treasure had ended up on the U.S. market.

  Morgantina, with its beautiful Greek theater, its colonnaded temples, and acres of ruins, is a classical site dating from the third to the second century BC, situated in the very heart of Sicily, in the province of Enna.

  When faced with Mascara’s accusation, the Met responded through its vice president (and in-house lawyer), Ashton Hawkins, that it was “perplexed” that the Italians should rely on the testimony of a mafioso, guilty of other crimes. The Italians countered that the Americans ought to know from their own experience that when a mafioso decides to turn state’s witness, he has nothing to gain and everything to lose by lying.

  Then, in 1997 Professor Malcolm Bell entered the story. Bell, professor of archaeology at the University of Virginia, had been excavating at Morgantina for many years. He arrived at the conclusion that the silver in the Metropolitan Museum came originally from Morgantina because of two pieces of archaeological evidence he discovered. In the first instance, he found a coin that, in style, decoration, and silver content, he says came “from the same nucleus” as the silver in the Metropolitan.

  In July 1997, he was asked by the Archaeological Superintendency for Enna, instigated by Dr. Raffiotta, to dig at Morgantina once again, this time in specific areas of Aidone indicated by the mafia “snitch” as possible sites for the provenance of the silver. There Bell discovered a house, already looted by tomb robbers, with two holes in the floor where he believes the silver was hidden: “When the Romans conquered Morgantina, a city already at the time famed for the quantity of its art works, the population panicked and many masterpieces were buried or hidden in cisterns or deep crevices.” The two separate holes, says Bell, would explain why the silver was brought to the market in two different lots.

  Back in 1993, Bell had applied to the Met for permission to examine the silver, but strangely enough, and contrary to their usual courtesy toward senior scholars, the Met had categorically refused. Now, after Bell’s new discoveries, the Italians insisted that the Met allow him to examine the silver. Later, the FBI, as part of a new agreement between the United States and Italy, which guarantees that Americans will not be allowed to import illegally excavated material, said it would put its secure labs at Bell’s disposal for the examination. Again the Met refused, describing Bell as “biased” and his arguments as “untrustworthy.” Its spokesman said that it could not be proved that the silver came “exclusively” from Morgantina. Once again, stalemate. The FBI offer was not taken up.

  Finally, however, and with the ignominious return of the Lydian treasure to Turkey in mind, the Met relented and in the spring and summer of 1999, Bell was allowed to examine the silver. The occasion produced its own drama. On four of the silver objects he read the name “Eupolemos,” a name already found in Morgantina. The Met’s Greek and Roman expert, Dietrich von Bothmer, had translated these inscriptions rather differently. The inscription, which von Bothmer interpreted as meaning “from the war,” was based on his reading of the relevant part of Greek as “EKIIOΛEMOΥ” Instead, in Bell’s opinion, the letters read, “EΥΠOΛEMOΥ,” one character different, but critically different, because it means the genitive case of the name Eupolemos, which translates as: “Of Eupolemos.”

  Although the Met, when it first acquired the silver, announced that the pieces came from Turkey, the Turks have never claimed it, despite their success over the Lydian hoard. Moreover, the Carabinieri Art Squad pieced together the chain of events since the silver left the ground. This information was made available by the Carabinieri at a special conference on the illicit traffic held at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, England, in 2000. The route was as follows: Vincenzo Bozzi and Filippo Baviera, tombaroli in Enna, sold the silver for 110 million lire ($27,000) to Orazio Di Simone, a Sicilian middleman based in Lugano in Switzerland, who sold it for $875,000 to Robert Hecht, who sold the silver to the Metropolitan Museum for $3 million. A not unfamiliar sequence.

  Given these antecedents, perhaps we should not be surprised to find that the Metropolitan consorted with Medici almost as often as the Getty did.

  There can be little doubt about this, for Maurizio Pellegrini found almost exactly the same kind of paper trail leading from Medici to the Met as he had found with the Getty. The evidence was there, in the Polaroids and other photographs seized in the Geneva Freeport. Antiquities would first be photographed while they were dirty and in fragments, before restoration. Then they would be restored, photographed again, sold to the Met—again through one or other of the various “front” outfits—and, finally, Medici would visit New York and have himself photographed with “his” object on display. Pellegrini isolated this paper trail in seven cases.

  The first case concerned a red-figure Attic amphora. This was first shown dirty and unrestored in one of the photographs seized in Geneva. Another seized photograph showed the same object, now restored, on display in a case in the Met. A second instance relates to a Laconian kylix, which is depicted in the Polaroids as being made up of fragments with many gaps. A separate photograph shows the same object, now restored, in its showcase in the museum on Fifth Avenue. The third case concerns an oinochoe in the shape of a Negro’s head. It too is shown in a Polaroid, and in a separate photograph appears in its showcase in the museum. Fourth, a red-figure Apulian dinos, attributed to the Darius Painter, was found in the photographs seized in Geneva. A dinos, also known as a lebes, is a deep bowl, usually rounded at the bottom so that it has to be set on a stand. It was used as a container, or for cooking or, when made of bronze, as a prize in athletic games. One set of photos shows this red-figure dinos in fragments; a second set shows it partially restored—with the fragments reassembled but the joins still visible; a third set shows the dinos, now fully restored, on display in its showcase at the Met.

  Photographs of a red-figure psykter with figures on horseback were also among those seized in Geneva. One shows several fragments partially restored, but still with gaps. A separate fragment was photographed on its own. This object, too, was bought by the Met.

  Then there were the photographs of a red-figure Attic amphora by the Berlin Painter. Among the photographs seized was one showing this in the early stages of restoration, with the fragments crudely assembled but with many gaps. A second photograph shows the amphora after complete restoration, “in near perfect conservative condition thanks to expert restoration which completely eliminated the traces of breakage.” It too was shown in its showcase in the museum.

  The seventh example is, of course, the Euphronios vase, discussed in the Prologue. Among the photographs seized in Geneva was one that appears from a covering note to have been taken in May 1987, when Medici was in New York. This photograph shows Giacomo Medici himself, standing proudly next to a large krater, showing the death of Sarpedon. It is indeed the Euphronios krater, and Medici’s proud pose, with chest out, chin thrust forward, depicts him as a victor, as having won some kind of race or contest. There is no mistaking the message. A second photograph shows Robert Hecht on the same occasion next to the same object. Why were these photographs taken? Pellegrini, Conforti, and Ferri all realized that, by themselves, these images didn’
t constitute proof of anything. Taken in context, however, alongside all the other photographs—at the Met, at the Getty, and at other museums—in which Medici liked to be photographed with “his” objects, it was extremely revealing, and damning.

  This does not complete the case against the Met. There were other tantalizing documents found in Geneva that provided more questions than answers. For example, there was an air-mail envelope, stamped December 14, 1990. At top left was the name and address of the Metropolitan, “1000 Fifth Avenue, NY NY 10028-0198,” and typed below, Medici’s name and address in Switzerland. Pellegrini never found out what had been in this envelope. As with the Getty, the Metropolitan had a very close relationship with certain antiquities collectors whose holdings were also stuffed with loot. As with the Getty, the Met associated itself with these collectors, adding the institution’s considerable prestige to the collection, when it must have known that the objects it was putting on display had been illegally dug up and smuggled out of Italy.

  Although the extent of the Getty’s acquisitions earned it the title among the initiated of the “Museum of the Tombaroli,” and although the Met’s acquisition of the Euphronios krater and its behavior over the Lydian hoard and the Morgantina silver earned it the special opprobrium of the Turks and the Italians, these two museums were by no means the only ones that Medici and the rest of his network dealt with. It was impossible for Pellegrini to check all the documentation seized at the Geneva Freeport since many objects acquired and displayed in the world’s museums are never published, so that good images, dimensions, and other details are not available for study and comparison. Nevertheless, some incriminating details are in the public domain.