In due course, Pellegrini pieced together why the objects had been photographed in this state - but not at first. In many cases, although the fragments had been joined together, the joins of the fragments were still visible, as were the gaps (the lacunae) where parts of the vases, say, were still missing. Next, however, there were many Polaroids showing the same objects restored, with the fragments joined together.
In other words, these objects were photographed near where they were excavated, in nearby fields or farmyards, in the houses of tombaroli, even on the back of a truck in one case. First, there were photographs of objects that were encrusted with dirt or calcarious deposits, in which the antiquities were often broken and incomplete. Besides the albums of photographs, Pellegrini calculated that some 100 full rolls of exposed film were seized, making a total of 3,600 images… The size of the task facing Pellegrini may be gauged from the fact that there were in Medici's warehouse thirty albums of Polaroids, fifteen envelopes with photographs, and twelve envelopes with rolls of film. While the three archaeologists concentrated on the objects, the paperwork became the responsibility of Maurizio Pellegrini, a photographic and document expert who had one foot in the public prosecutor's office and the other in the Villa Giulia…
The documentation they found in Medici's warehouse proved to be as damning as the objects themselves.Īlthough the antiquities themselves formed the most vivid and moving aspect of the seizure in Geneva, there was no less interest - for Conforti and for Ferri - in the documentation found in the back office behind Medici's showroom. The Italian Carabinieri Art Squad gained access to the warehouse in 1997, as part of their investigation into Medici's ties to a global ring of looters, dealers, curators and collectors who worked to smuggle antiquities out of Italy. Photograph albums, cataloging stolen items, seized from the Geneva Freeport warehouse.Ī 1995 raid on suspected tomb raider Giacomo Medici's warehouse in Geneva showed that Medici had been storing thousands of ancient vases, frescos, and other antiquities - some in fragments or in various stages of restoration, some encrusted with dirt - out of reach of the Italian government, in the Swiss Freeport.
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