The ANNOTICO Report

While Persia, Egypt, and Greece had rich cultural epochs, Italy not only
had TWO Epochs (Rome and the Renaissance), but most people are unaware that
much of Greece's great cultural flowering took place in Sicily and Southern
Italy (`Magna Grecia' *) just prior to the Roman Empire.

Italy, therefore while housing 90% of European patrimony, is also one of
the greater repositories in the world.

The reason one hears of continuing great theft of Italy's Art, which to the
unknowing, might indicate a lack of concern, but the fact that there is SO
much to guard, on a 24/7 basis.

Similar to the Willie Sutton response to why he robbed banks, he said,
"That's where the Money is!"
Likewise, Italy is where the Art is! Those treasures are irresistible to
the unsavory.

This current criminal indictment involves about 40 items acquired by the
Getty in recent years, including two particularly notable Greek statues of
deities.

INDICTMENT TARGETS GETTY'S ACQUISITIONS

Los Angeles Times
By Tracy Wilkinson and Suzanne Muchnic
Times Staff Writers
May 20, 2005

ROME — In a long-running legal battle with broad implications for museum
collections worldwide, a senior curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los
Angeles has been indicted here on criminal charges involving the
acquisition of precious antiquities in this archeologically rich country,
authorities in Rome said.

Marion True, 56, curator for antiquities at the museum and director of the
Getty Villa, is accused of criminal conspiracy to receive stolen goods and
illicit receipt of archeological items. It is also alleged that True in
effect laundered goods that were purchased by a private collection and then
sold to the Getty in paper transactions that created phony documentation.

The plunder of Italian treasures has gone on for many years. Despite
efforts to stem it, valuable art — some of it stolen — has made its way
into the hands of major museums and collectors like the Getty, authorities
believe. The criminal indictment of a top curator was seen as an indication
that Italian officials are taking more aggressive steps to curb such
practices.

Getty officials said they had cooperated in the investigation and they
defended True.

If the prosecution is successful, the Italians intend to pursue cases at
other museums. The plunder of Italy for its artworks is a crime tantamount
to "stealing history," the indictment maintains. By attempting to prosecute
an official from such a rich museum, Italian authorities said, they hope to
send a clear message that they will no longer tolerate the vast and
systematic robbing of antiquities from a country replete with historical
treasures.

"We want this case to be a big deterrent," Capt. Massimiliano Quagliarella,
who commands Italy's Carabinieri paramilitary police unit that oversees
archeological theft, said in an interview. "It is important to stop the
phenomenon of illegal excavations and illegal exportation by eliminating
the demand and thus eliminating the offer."

He and the main prosecutor on the case briefed a reporter on the contents
of the indictment. The prosecutor asked that his name not be published
because the case is pending and he did not want to appear to be trying it
in the press. The trial is scheduled to begin in Rome on July 18, at which
time the full details of the indictment will be disclosed.

Several attorneys who specialize in cultural heritage issues say that
prosecuting a museum curator is unusual but not surprising in a field
fraught with conflicting professional agendas and national laws.

"The fact that Italy is following through with this reflects greater
frustration of countries that can't seem to stem the flow of antiquities,"
said Lawrence M. Kaye of the Herrick, Feinstein law firm in New York. "They
are going to look for other measures until they are able to do so.

"I do think it's problematical if museum curators, particularly reputable
ones, are going to be the subject of indictments around the world. It
certainly sends a chill out, warning people to be very careful about what
kind of antiquities they are buying."

The case is the latest example of national efforts to retrieve lost
artworks. Greece wants the British Museum to return the marbles that Lord
Elgin removed from the Parthenon and wants the Louvre to hand over the
"Winged Victory" statue taken from the island of Samothrace. Egypt wants
the Rosetta Stone, also at the British Museum.

The indictment of True comes after nearly 10 years of investigation. The
case involves about 40 items acquired by the Getty in recent years, the
authorities said. Investigators have not released a list of the objects,
but they said that two particularly notable Greek statues of deities were
included.

One sculpture, a keystone of the Getty's collection, is a 7 1/2 -foot
likeness of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, carved in marble and limestone
in the 5th century BC. The Getty imported the work in 1987 and declared its
value at $20 million when it cleared customs. The other work, a 33-inch
figure of Tyche, the goddess of fortune, was made of marble in the 2nd
century BC. It is part of the collection amassed by New York art patrons
Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman, acquired by the Getty in 1996 as part
gift, part purchase.

True is traveling outside the U.S. and could not be reached for comment.
But the Getty issued a statement expressing disappointment in the action:
"During the course of the Italian authorities' preliminary investigation,
the Getty reviewed and provided to the prosecutors thousands of pages of
documents from our files. We trust that this trial will result in her
exoneration and end further damage to the personal and professional
reputation of Dr. True."

The prosecutor will not decide what penalty to seek until shortly before
the trial, but authorities indicated that it is likely to be much less than
the 10-year sentence handed down to Italian art dealer Giacomo Medici,
recently convicted of trafficking in antiquities.

Originally, the charges against True were part of a larger case that
included Medici and a Paris-based art dealer, Emanuel Robert Hecht.

The cases were divided when Medici requested a "fast-track" prosecution
under rules that allow shorter sentences in speedier trials. Medici was
convicted, sentenced and ordered to pay fines late last year. He is
appealing the decision.

Hecht has been barred from entering Italy for his alleged role in selling
looted Greek silver to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The evidence against True, Italian authorities said, is similar to that
used to convict Medici, including photographs of items that authorities
believed might have been stolen. Medici was involved in numerous sales of
artifacts that ended up at the Getty, investigators said.

Italian prosecutors traveled to Los Angeles and New York to investigate the
case. True was also deposed in Rome on March 15 and 16, the Italian
authorities said. Getty officials have said they have found no evidence of
wrongdoing. A lawyer for True, Francesco Isolabella, has described the
acquisitions made by his client as being carried out "in the clear light of
day."

The Getty has a policy of returning objects to their countries of origin
should evidence indicate that is the right thing to do. But the legal
action in Italy comes at a time when the multifaceted Getty Trust is mired
in controversy over the departure of Getty Museum Director Deborah Gribbon,
who resigned in October citing philosophical differences with J. Paul Getty
Trust President Barry Munitz.

The case is also shaping up as a major distraction to the long-awaited
reopening of the villa. The Roman-style facility on the edge of Malibu was
the Getty's all-purpose museum until 1997, when the new museum opened at
the Getty Center in Brentwood. The villa has been closed since then for
renovation and redesigned as a study center exclusively devoted to
antiquities. After repeated delays, the facility is expected to open to the
public at the end of the year.

True, a leader in the field of antiquities, has worked at the Getty for 23
years. She spent her first two years, 1982 to 1984, as an assistant to
antiquities curator Jiri Frel, who was hired in 1973 by the museum's
founder, oil baron J. Paul Getty.

Frel built the antiquities holding quickly, acquiring showpieces and a huge
study collection through purchases and gifts, but he was forced to retire
in 1984 after disclosures that he had traded inflated appraisals for
donated antiquities.

True was promoted to the position of associate curator upon Frel's
departure. She took charge of the antiquities department in 1986, the year
she received her doctorate from Harvard University.

On True's watch, the Getty's antiquities collection has continued to grow —
under international scrutiny.

In 1999, the Getty took the much-publicized step of returning to Italy
three works: a 480 BC Greek terra cotta drinking cup that was illegally
excavated; a 2nd century torso of the god Mithra stolen from a private
Italian collection; and a 2nd century Roman head of an athlete illicitly
taken from an excavation storeroom. In announcing the decision to return
the objects, the Getty credited True's "vigilance and extensive contact
with specialists in ancient art."

The towering sculpture of Aphrodite at issue created a furor in 1988, soon
after the museum unveiled the artwork, purchased the previous year. Italian
authorities promptly launched an inquiry, charging that the statue might
have been unearthed by scavengers and smuggled out of Sicily in the 1970s.
The controversy died down when no evidence materialized, only to boil up
again in the indictment of True.

The current legal action also has renewed questions about Greek, Roman and
Etruscan antiquities amassed by Lawrence Fleischman, who died in 1997, and
his wife, Barbara, a member of the Getty Trust's board of directors. In
1994 and 1995, when the Getty and the Cleveland Museum of Art displayed
about 200 works from the collection in a traveling show, some critics
objected to the lack of documentation. The prosecution of True alleges that
the Fleischman collection was used to launder Getty acquisitions.

In 1995, the museum adopted a formal policy against acquiring antiquities
that lacked documentation or were not part of an established collection.
The following year the Getty acquired about 300 pieces from the
Fleischmans. Museum officials said most of the items were donated but did
not disclose the value of the collection. Estimates in the press have
pegged it from $60 million to $80 million.

In the last decade, the Getty has sharply reduced its collecting of
antiquities. When the villa reopens, the existing collection will fill the
galleries and the program will concentrate on archeological conservation
and research.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/
la-et-getty20may20,0,1323380.story?coll=la
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Within the borders of Magna Grecia —Greater Greece—  there arose great
centers of Hellenic culture that also became the  marketplaces for the
science and philosophy of Archimedes, Pythagoras and Plato.

In the 4th century b.c., with Alexander the Great looking to the east to
conquer the civilized world of his day, the Persian Empire, the settlements
of Magna Grecia were, more or less, on their own. Sicily had become the
most powerful city-state of Magna Grecia by that time, and its ruler,
Dionysius, tried to establish a single Empire of Magna Grecia starting in
400 b.c. It was, in a way, quite like Phillip of Macedonia's (Alexander's
father) plan to unify Greece, itself. A united southern Italy might have
been a forerunner of, or maybe —if we play the 'what-if' game of history— a
substitute for the Roman Empire, itself. Alas for Dionysius and his less
capable successors, they couldn't fend off the Carthaginians or the
increasingly restive native tribes of Italy. When one of these tribes, the
Romans, took Taranto in 272, b.c. Greek history in Italy was overwhelmed by
the onrush of Roman history. Magna Grecia was at an end.