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Showing posts with label Getty Museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Getty Museum. Show all posts

December 4, 2018

Italy's Court of Cassation rejects the J. Paul Getty Museum's appeal against the lower court ruling on the Getty Bronze


On Monday, Italy’s Cassation Court rejected the J. Paul Getty Museum's appeal against the lower court ruling in Pesaro, issued by Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini.  That earlier ruling, issued on June 08, 2018, was in favour of the prosecution’s request for seizure of the bronze statue, commonly known as the Statue of a Victorious Youth or colloquially as the Getty Bronze, il Lisippo or l'Atleta di Fano.  

Image Credit: ARCA - Palace of Justice, Rome
The Pesaro judge's decision was heavily based upon the failure of the fishermen who found the statue “to report the find to the exportation office to obtain possible authorization for its temporary importation,” and on the object's “illegal exportation and smuggling” after the bronze was brought clandestinely ashore to Italy in 1964 and then later secretly removed in violation of Italian law.

The California museum had sought a judicial review from the Court of Cassation of Gasparini's decision in an attempt to prevent the enforcement of the lower court's judgment for confiscation.  Their application however has been rejected and Italy's highest court has announced "la confisca dell’opera è definitiva" . [English: the confiscation of the work is final].

Now, unless the museum voluntarily relinquishes the statue, the case may need to be taken up with the judicial authorities in the US.  According to the United States National Stolen Property Act, which "allows foreign countries’ cultural patrimony legislation to be effectively enforced within U.S. territory by U.S. courts," to do so would imply another round of documents being shuffled between attorneys representing both sides, albeit in the United States.  

For the Italians to win in the US, the bronze must be considered stolen in the United States.  Additionally Italy's attorneys would need to prove that the statue was discovered within the Italian territories and that Italy's cultural patrimony law unequivocally vests ownership of such antiquities to the State.  They must also show that the country's foreign patrimony law is not so vague as to be in violation of due process.


For now though, we wait for Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation to publish an explanatory statement on its own ruling and for the Italian government to submit a Letters Rogatory Request to the United States seeking their assistance in investigating the circumstances of the statue's exportation and asking the US government to confiscate the bronze so that it can, after more than 50 years, be returned to Italy.

To read all of ARCA's posts on the Getty case, follow our link here.

By:  Lynda Albertson

June 12, 2018

The J. Paul Getty Museum has issued a statement regarding the judicial ruling on the Statue of a Victorious Youth AKA the Getty Bronze (In English and Italian)

Backdated to June 08, 2018, Ron Hartwig, the spokesperson for the J. Paul Getty Trust, has issued a public statement (in English) regarding the ruling of the Italian court magistrate on over the museum's rights to retain l’Atleta di Fano.

That statement can be found/downloaded on the museum's website here and here. 

For our English and Italian readers, we have reposted their statement and translated it into Italian for this blog's readers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 08, 2018

STATEMENT FROM RON HARTWIG, SPOKESPERSON FOR THE J. PAUL GETTY TRUST, REGARDING THE RULING IN PESARO ON THE VICTORIOUS YOUTH

Press Release

MEDIA CONTACT(S):

Julie Jaskol
jjaskol@getty.edu
(310) 440-7607
Getty Communications

Statement from Ron Hartwig, spokesperson for the J. Paul Getty Trust,
regarding the ruling in Pesaro on the Victorious Youth


We have just received the judge’s decision and are reviewing it. We are disappointed in the ruling, but we will continue to defend our legal right to the statue. The facts in this case do not warrant restitution of the object to Italy. The statue was found in international waters in 1964, and was purchased by the Getty Museum in 1977, years after Italian courts concluded there was no evidence that the statue belonged to Italy.

Moreover, the statue is not part of Italy’s extraordinary cultural heritage. Accidental discovery by Italian citizens does not make the statue an Italian object. Found outside the territory of any modern state, and immersed in the sea for two millennia, the Bronze has only a fleeting and incidental connection with Italy.

We very much value our strong and fruitful relationship with the Italian Ministry of Culture and our museum colleagues in Italy. Resolution of this matter must rest on the facts and applicable law, under which we expect our ownership of the Victorious Youth to be upheld.

For more details on Italy's recent court decision on this case please see our earlier blog post here.

༺═──────────────═༻


PER IL RILASCIO IMMEDIATO
8 GIUGNO 2018

DICHIARAZIONE DI RON HARTWIG, PORTAVOCE DEL J. PAUL GETTY TRUST, IN MERITO SENTENZA A PESARO SULLA GIOVENTÙ VITTORIOSA

Comunicato stampa

CONTATTO / I PER I MEDIA:

Julie Jaskol 
jjaskol@getty.edu 
(310) 440-7607 
Getty Communications 
Dichiarazione di Ron Hartwig, portavoce del J. Paul Getty Trust, 
riguardo alla sentenza a Pesaro sulla Gioventù vittoriosa

Abbiamo appena ricevuto la decisione del giudice e la stiamo esaminando. Siamo delusi dalla sentenza, ma continueremo a difendere il nostro diritto legale alla statua. I fatti in questo caso non garantiscono la restituzione dell'oggetto in Italia. La statua fu trovata in acque internazionali nel 1964 e fu acquistata dal Getty Museum nel 1977, anni dopo che le tribunali italiani conclusero che non esisteva alcuna prova che la statua appartenesse all'Italia. 

Inoltre, la statua non fa parte dello straordinario patrimonio culturale italiano. La scoperta casuale da parte di cittadini non rende la statua un oggetto italiano. Trovata al di fuori del territorio di qualsiasi stato moderno, e immersa nel mare per due millenni, il Bronzo ha solo una fugace e fortuita connessione con l'Italia. 

Apprezziamo molto il nostro rapporto forte e proficuo con il Ministero della Cultura italiano e con i nostri colleghi museali in Italia. La risoluzione di questo problema deve basarsi sui fatti e sulla giurisprudenza applicabile, in base alla quale ci aspettiamo che la nostra proprietà del Giovane vittorioso venga mantenuta. 

Per piu dettagli sulla la decisione del giudice del tribunale italiana per favore consultare il nostro precedente post sul blog qui.

To read all of ARCA's posts on the Getty case, follow our link here.

By:  Lynda Albertson

June 9, 2018

The Statue of a Victorious Country: Judge issues a long awaited ordinance on the fate of the "Getty" Bronze

The Getty Villa.
Image Credit: ARCA 2018
For the third time, and after years and years of battles, which started in the courtrooms of Pesaro before passing slowly through Italy’s Corte Suprema di Cassazione (Supreme Court of Cassation), only to be sent back down to the lower courts again, we finally have a verdict over the rights to l’Atleta di Fano.

Commonly known as the Statue of a Victorious Youth or colloquially as the Getty Bronze, to the Italians this stoic bronze statue is known as il Lisippo or l'Atleta di Fano.  Yet, despite Italy's long-held claim for its return, the bronze has long held pride of place at the Getty Villa, the Los Angeles museum at the easterly end of the Malibu bluffs in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.  There, in one of America's most prestigious museums, the athletic youth stands with all of his weight on his right leg, crowning himself with an olive wreath, as his gaze looks out over some of the museum's most impressive Hellenistic artworks in the California villa's newly renovated Gallery 111.

But that may change very soon. 


Judge Gasparini listens to Getty
council’s final argument in open court
Pesaro court house, 05 Feb 2018
Image Credit: ARCA
On June 08, 2018, in a long-awaited judicial decision, the Italian Tribunale di Pesaro issued a 50-page ordinance, written and signed by Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini who firmly rejected the Getty museum's opposition to Italy's order of confiscation.

Throughout the case, the J. Paul Getty Museum has stood by its original claim, that its purchase of the statue in 1977, for $3.95 million, was legitimate.  The museum's legal team and its current director Timothy Potts have stoically maintained that there was no evidence that the statue belongs in any way to Italy, discounting the country's claim that the object was exported out of Italy in contravention of existing Italian law.  This despite the fact that the bronze had been fished from the sea by Italian fishermen aboard the Ferruccio Ferri in 1964, who then brought the statue to the Italian city of Fano where they hid it from authorities, first, by burying it in a cabbage patch and later, by hiding it in a priest's bathtub rather than declare their cultural find as required to the Italian customs dogana.

Getty Museum attorney's listen to
their Italian council's final argument
in open court
Pesaro court house, 05 Feb 2018
Image Credit: ARCA
During those open court hearings which I attended in Pesaro, the Getty's attorney's maintained that John Paul Getty himself had originally walked away from the purchase of the statue, not for the reasons maintained by Italy's attorneys, but because at the time the object was originally proffered to him, Getty was more concerned about the fate and wellbeing of his grandson, 16-year-old John Paul Getty III, who had been kidnapped from Piazza Farnese in Rome on July 10, 1973.

Justice moves slowly and will the Athlete of Fano come home? 

For now, we do not know.

To understand how this complicated case has moved through the Italian judicial system it is first necessary to understand a bit more about the country’s legal system.  It is the responsibility of the Corte Suprema di Cassazione to ensure the correct application of law in the inferior and appeal courts and to resolve disputes as to which lower court (penal, civil, administrative, military) has jurisdiction.  Additionally, the higher court is also entrusted with the charge of defining the jurisdiction i.e., of indicating, in case of controversy, the court, either ordinary or special, Italian or foreign, which has the power to rule on a case.

Unlike upper level courts in the United States or the United Kingdom, the Italian Supreme Court cannot refuse to review cases and defendants have unlimited appeal rights to the Supreme Court of Cassation.  This means that the Getty Museum could, if it chooses to do so, repeat its appeals process for a second time, all the way back up to the higher court extending their claim for additional years to come.

Given the backlog of criminal and civil cases pending and the lengthy process involved in delivering a ruling once an absolute decision has been handed down, cases like this one often linger in judicial limbo for many years.

Interior, Palazzo di Giustizia, Roma
To put things in perspective and to give readers an idea of how this complicates judicial resolutions, it's helpful to look at other countries for comparison.  The United Kingdom's Supreme Court hears approximately 75 cases per year while the United States Supreme Court generally rules on 100 to 120 case decisions annually.  In a country serving a local population that is one-fifth the size of the United States, the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation decides on close to 50,000 cases (both criminal and civil) annually.  The final administrative court, the Consiglio di Stato decides over 10,000 cases per year; while the Constitutional Court makes final decisions on around 400 cases per year.

Like other supreme courts around the world, the Court of Cassation is not tasked with re-examining the entire body of evidence in a given case.  Additionally it does not have to make rulings solely on cases that have passed through the Corte d'Assise d'Apello, Italy's Appellate Court. Cases which meet certain criteria can go directly from the tribunal level court system to the supreme court as the Court's role is specifically to rule on erores in iudicando and errores in procedendo (errors in procedure or application of the law). 

Some criminal cases reach Italy's Court of Cassation by first passing through the Corte d'Assise d'Apello, as was the case with the high profile murder case of Amanda Knox.  Both the defendant and the prosecution in that type of appeal case retain the right of appeal and both the Corte d'Assise d'Appello and the Supreme Court are required to publish written explanations of their rulings and decisions.

But these are the upper courts.

Before arriving at the Supreme Court or Appeal Court cases are heard by regional tribunals.  Tribunals consist of one single judge or a panel of three judges depending on the type of case being heard.  It is these tribunali which are the Italian court's first instance of general jurisdiction in both civil and criminal matters and it is at this level, in Pesaro, that this recent decision has been handed down. 

The Getty Villa, California
But getting back to the specifics of the case of the Getty Bronze that in some ways is as complex and hard to follow judicially as a tightly contested Wimbledon tennis match.

In 2007 the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the J. Paul Getty Trust agreed to set the question of the Victorius Youth aside pending the ongoing legal process before the Tribunal in Pesaro concerning the object's illegal exportation from Italy.  The accord of the parties on this point was crucial as earlier negotiations in 2006 had been contentious and unfruitful due to disagreements between Italy and the Getty over the statue's ownership status.

In 2007, in proceedings before the Tribunal of Pesaro, charges related to the illicit exportation of the Victorious Youth were dismissed upon the request of the public prosecutor on the grounds that the statute of limitations on prosecution had expired against all of the defendants in the case, leaving the Italian state with no one left to prosecute.  At the time of the requested dismissal, the prosecutor demanded the confiscation of the bronze given it had been exported out of Italy in contravention of existing Italian law.

The Athlete of Fano, depicted before restoration. 
Almost three years later, on the tenth of February 2010, Luisa Mussoni, the preliminary investigation judge at the Tribunal of Pesaro, ruled that the Victorious Youth had been exported illicitly.  As a result of this court decision, the tribunal issued an order for the statue's immediate seizure and restitution to Italy.  This court order followed an earlier and separate order June 12, 2009 ruling on the question of the jurisdiction.

As a result of these two decisions, the Getty Museum subsequently challenged the orders' validity before the Italian Court of Cassation on February 18, 2011. At that hearing the case was remanded back to the Tribunal of Pesaro for further examination of the merits of the case.

On May 3, 2012 Maurizio Di Palma, the pretrial judge at the Tribunal of Pesaro, once again upheld the earlier 2010 order of forfeiture and confirmed that the statue was illegally exported from Italy.  His ruling placed the case's resolution back with Italy's Supreme Court for what was supposed to be the case's final ruling.

But it wasn't.

Instead in February 2014 the Prima Sezione Penale della Cassazione (First Penal Section of the Supreme Court of Italy) elected to transfer the case to the Terzo Sezione Penale della Suprema Corte (Third Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court) where a new hearing was scheduled to establish whether or not the order of confiscation issued by the Court of Pesaro on May 3, 2012 should have been affirmed.

In 2014 the Terzo sezione penale della Suprema Corte, based on the European convention on human rights, ruled that cases must be heard in open court and that in not providing for such, the Getty museum had been "deprived of its constitutional rights" to a public hearing.  In furtherance of this, and much to the frustration of those working towards the statue's repatriation, the Italian Court of Cassation remanded the supreme court case back to the lower court authorities in Le Marche in order to establish in open court where witnesses could be called, to determine whether or not the earlier order of confiscation issued by the Court of Pesaro on May 3, 2012 should be affirmed.

Yesterday, in his June 8, 2018 ordinance, Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini stated in clear terms that he agreed with the previous court decisions (Mussoni in 2010 and Di Palma in 2012) and wrote in favor of the object's seizure stating, "Confiscate il Lisippo, ovunque si trovi" (English: "Confiscate Il Lisippo from wherever it is").

Given this prestigious statue's pride of place at the Getty Villa, the J. Paul Getty Museum would lose its substantial investment and a critical and cherished piece in their collection should they abide by Magistrate Gasparini's seizure ruling and relinquish the statue to Italy as a result of this last affirmation. If they choose not to, they can again delay what now seems to be the inevitable, simply by tying the case up again, appealing Pesaro Magistrate Gasparini's ruling up through Italy's higher courts. 
Screenshot from RAI 1 Production
"Petrolio" aired 06 June 2018

But what is the point? 

The protracted legal challenge of this case have been so lengthy that it has been a career making case for three of Italy's cultural property attorneys: Public Prosecutor from the tribunal of Rome, Paolo Giorgio Ferri, Italian State Attorney Maurizio Fiorilli and most recently, the next generation of Italian state prosecutors, Lorenzo D'Ascia.  Given its tenacity to fight for its cultural patrimony, and the fact that Italy would be hearing any new appeal on its own legal turf, the Getty's legal fees might be better spent on new acquisitions and not on this long-contested object which has such a contentious background.

But having said that, the question remains as to if the director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Timothy Potts, appointed in September 2012, will continue to fight Italy's seizure ruling, or will he be the first in the Getty's line of directors to acquiesce and accept defeat gracefully.

In a recent interview with Potts aired on Italy's RAI1 television program Petrolio on June 6, 2018, just two days before Gasparini's verdict was announced, Potts continued to grimly assert his museum's stance.  In that interview Potts forcefully stating that l’Atleta di Fano was found in international waters and staunchly negating that it formed a part of Italy’s cultural patrimony, given that it had passed through multiple countries and was not found in Italy.

It will be interesting to see if he changes his mind after reading Magistrate Garparini's 50 page decision.

To read all of ARCA's posts on the Getty case, follow our link here.

By Lynda Albertson, CEO, ARCA

May 8, 2014

Italy’s Corte Suprema di Cassazione and the Getty Bronze: Case postponed again until June 4, 2014

By Lynda Albertson, CEO, ARCA

In a story that seems like it will never end, Italy’s Corte Suprema di Cassazione (Supreme Court of Cassation) was scheduled to hand down its final ruling today at the Palace of Justice in Rome on the fate of the l’Atleta di Fano, commonly known by as The Getty Bronze, the “Victorious Youth" or il Lisippo.  The bronze work of art, a representation of an athletic youth standing with all of his weight on his right leg, is depicted crowning himself with an olive wreath. It was purchased by the J. Paul Getty Museum under less than transparent circumstances in 1977 for $3.95 million.

I spoke with  Stefano Alessandrini, Consultant  to Il Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali today, who was at the court awaiting today's verdict.  He relayed that as many expected, the final decision has been postponed once again, citing that the case was "delicate". 

After years of discussions Italy's highest court still has not elected to issue its ruling upholding a lower court's judgment that the "Victorious Youth" was illicitly exported from Italy and as such, is subject to seizure.  Instead the Terzo sezione penale della Suprema Corte (Third Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court) has shifted the scheduled hearing to June 04, 2014 to establish whether or not the order of confiscation issued by the Court of Pesaro on May 3, 2012 should be affirmed.

The Getty Museum has been fighting a lower court's ruling by claiming that the statue was found in international waters in 1964 and was purchased by the Getty Museum in 1977 -- years after Italian courts concluded that there was no evidence that the statue belonged to Italy.  Throughout this elongated court process, the J. Paul Getty Museum has maintained that the statue's accidental discovery by Italian fishermen, who then brought the bronze to Fano and hid it from authorities, did not grant the statue the status of an Italian object.

Italy's second cultural property attorney following this case, Maurizio Fiorilli retired April 12, 2014 passing the torch to a third state prosecutor.  

As with the February postponement, Italy continues to wait.

February 26, 2014

OpEd: Italy’s Corte Suprema di Cassazione and the Getty Bronze: What will be the fate of the Fano Athlete?

By Lynda Albertson, CEO, ARCA

A story decades in the making, Italy’s Corte Suprema di Cassazione (Supreme Court of Cassation) was scheduled to hand down its final ruling today at the Palace of Justice in Rome on the fate of the l’Atleta di Fano, commonly known by as The Getty Bronze, the “Victorious Youth" or il Lisippo.  The bronze work of art, a representation of an athletic youth standing with all of his weight on his right leg, is depicted crowning himself with an olive wreath. It was purchased by the J. Paul Getty Museum under less than transparent circumstances in 1977 for $3.95 million.

After years of discussions Italy's highest court has elected not to issue its ruling today upholding a lower court's judgment that the "Victorious Youth" was illicitly exported from Italy and as such, is subject to seizure.  Instead the Prima sezione penale della Cassazione (First Penal Section of the Supreme Court of Italy) has elected to transfer the case to the Terzo sezione penale della Suprema Corte (Third Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court) where a new hearing will be scheduled to establish whether or not the order of confiscation issued by the Court of Pesaro on May 3, 2012 should be affirmed.

The Getty Museum has been fighting a lower court's ruling by claiming that the statue was found in international waters in 1964 and was purchased by the Getty Museum in 1977 -- years after Italian courts concluded that there was no evidence that the statue belonged to Italy.  Throughout this elongated court process, the J. Paul Getty Museum has maintained that the statue's accidental discovery by Italian fishermen, who then brought the bronze to Fano and hid it from authorities, did not grant the statue the status of an Italian object.

Examining the merits of the case within the Prima sezione penale della Cassazione (First Penal Section of the Supreme Court of Italy) were the following magistrates:

Dott. Renato Cortese, Panel President
Dott. Angela Tardio, Consiglieri (Counselor)
Dott. Lucia La Posta, Consiglieri
Dott. Filippo Casa, Consiglieri
Dott. Francesco Bonito, Relatore (Speaker)

The Getty museum was represented in the case by Milan attorney Emanuele Rimini and attorney Alfredo Gaito from Rome. The Italian Ministry of Culture was represented by state cultural heritage attorney Maurizio Fiorilli.

But why fight over such a beautiful work of art?

This life-size Greek bronze statue is believed to have been created between the 4th and 2nd century BCE, possibly by the artist Lysippo, the court sculptor of Alexander the Great. While Lysippo was a prolific sculpture, few of his bronzes remain in existence making this particular statue and its high financial value something worth fighting for.  Italy has fought for the statue's return based on principle and for many years has utilized the judicial system within its means to make a point that its antiquities should not be trafficked.  The J. Paul Getty Museum is concerned that it will lose a substantial investment and a critical and cherished piece in their collection.  These opposing desires have placed the "Victorious Youth" at the epicenter of an international legal dispute that has lasted through the careers of two of Italy's finest cultural property attorneys, Giorgio Paolo Ferri and Maurizio Fiorilli.

The story of the statue begins with its discovery in 1964 off the northern Adriatic coast of Italy where it was fished from the sea by the Italian crew of the fishing trawler, Ferrucio Ferri who plied their trade out of Italy. Hauled aboard in the fisherman's nets and later hoisted from the boat onto Italian soil when the ship docked in Fano, the statue has changed hands and countries multiple times.  Its journey has been filled with fishermen, traffickers, shady middlemen and even a priest, making its journey from port harbor to one of the United State’s most prestigious museums a story worthy of more than just one article.

Rather than declare the statue’s discovery to customs officials, as required under Italian law, the fisherman and his brothers hid the bronze almost immediately.  To protect their asset, they buried the bronze in a cabbage field and began scouting for potential buyers.  The work of art was eventually sold to Giacomo Barbetti, a wealthy antiquarian, who was the first to identify the bronze as perhaps being the work of the Greek master, Lysippo.

In May 1965, the bronze moved from Fano to Gubbio, where, with the help of Father Giovanni Nagni, it was hidden for a brief period in a church sacristy. As the encrusted statue, covered in marine organisms and barnacles from its 2000 years in seawater began to smell, it drew unwanted attention forcing the resourceful conspirators to relocate the bronze from the church room for vestments to the priest’s bathtub.  There it was submerged in a saltwater bath to minimize its odor and slow its decay.  Investigators and lawyers tracing the statues journey say that Barbetti quickly sold the bronze to an unidentified buyer from Milan. 

Afterwards, the "Victorious Youth" passed through a number of other hands, crisscrossing its way through several countries after it was smuggled out of Italy.  In 1972 it passed through antique dealer Herzer Heinz in Munich who was tasked with removing the detritus that was encrusting the statue. It was in Heinz's studio in Germany that the bronze was examined, but not purchased, by Thomas Hoving from the New York Metropolitan Museum. 

In 1974 the Luxembourg-based company Artemis S.A, purchased the statue for $700,000.  Founded in 1970, evidence presented by the Italian state at the Tribunal in Pesaro in February 2010 suggests that the firm was created ad hoc to craft false provenance for antiquities trafficking.

During this period Herzer contacted Bernard Ashmole, at the British Museum who in turn approached J. Paul Getty about a possible purchase.   The American industrialist, turned art collector was skeptical enough of the statue’s sketchy provenance and Italian police interest in the piece that he declined to purchase the masterpiece.  Despite their founder's misgivings, the J. Paul Getty Museum bought the statue one year after Getty’s death.  The purchase in turn resulted in an INTERPOL notification to the Italian authorities that the Victorious Youth had found a museum buyer.
Palazzo di Giustizia, Roma

To understand how the case moved through the Italian judicial system it is first necessary to understand a bit more about the country’s legal system.  It is the responsibility of the Corte Suprema di Cassazione to ensure the correct application of law in the inferior and appeal courts and to resolve disputes as to which lower court (penal, civil, administrative, military) has jurisdiction.  Additionally, the higher court is also entrusted with the charge of defining the jurisdiction i.e., of indicating, in case of controversy, the court, either ordinary or special, Italian or foreign, which has the power to rule on a case.

Unlike upper level courts in the United States or the United Kingdom, the Italian Supreme Court cannot refuse to review cases and defendants have unlimited appeal rights to the Supreme Court of Cassation.  Given the backlog of criminal and civil cases pending and the lengthy process involved in delivering a ruling once an absolute decision has been handed down, cases like this one can linger in judicial limbo for many years.

Interior, Palazzo di Giustizia, Roma
To put things in perspective and to give readers an idea of how this complicates judicial resolutions, it's helpful to look at other countries for comparison.  The United Kingdom's Supreme Court hears approximately 75 cases per year while the United States Supreme Court generally rules on 100 to 120 case decisions annually.  In a country serving a local population that is one-fifth the size of the United States, the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation decides on close to 50,000 cases (both criminal and civil) annually.  The final administrative court, the Consiglio di Stato decides over 10,000 cases per year; while the Constitutional Court makes final decisions on around 400 cases per year.

Like other supreme courts around the world, the Court of Cassation is not tasked with re-examining the entire body of evidence in a given case.  Additionally it does not have to make rulings solely on cases that have passed through the Corte d'Assise d'Apello, Italy's Appellate Court. Cases which meet certain criteria can go directly from the tribunal level court system to the supreme court as the Court's role is specifically to rule on erores in iudicando and errores in procedendo (errors in procedure or application of the law). 

Some criminal cases reach Italy's Court of Cassation first passing through the Corte d'Assise d'Apello as was the case recently with the high profile murder case of Amanda Knox.  Both the defendant and the prosecution in this type of appeal case retain the right of appeal and both the Corte d'Assise d'Appello and the Supreme Court are required to publish written explanations of their rulings and decisions. But these are the upper courts.

Before arriving at the Supreme Court or Appeal Court cases are heard by regional tribunals.  Tribunals consist of one single judge or a panel of three judges depending on the type of case being heard.  It is these tribunali which are the Italian court's first instance of general jurisdiction in both civil and criminal matters. 

The Getty Villa, California
But getting back to the case of the Getty Bronze that in some ways is as complex and hard to follow judicially as a Wimbledon tennis match.

In 2007 the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the J. Paul Getty Trust agreed to set the question of the Victorius Youth aside pending the ongoing legal process before the Tribunal in Pesara concerning the object's illegal exportation from Italy.  The accord of the parties on this point was crucial as earlier negotiations in 2006 had been contentious and unfruitful due to disagreements between Italy and the Getty over the statue's ownership status.

In 2007, in proceedings before the Tribunal of Pesaro, charges related to the illicit exportation of the Victorious Youth were dismissed upon the request of the public prosecutor on the grounds that the statute of limitations on prosecution had expired against all of the defendants in the case leaving the Italian state with no one to prosecute.  At the time of the requested dismissal the prosecutor demanded the confiscation of the bronze given it had been exported out of Italy in contravention of existing Italian law.

Almost three years later, on the tenth of February 2010, Luisa Mussoni, the preliminary investigation judge at the Tribunal of Pesaro, ruled that the Victorious Youth was exported illicitly.  As a result of this court decision, the tribunal issued an order for the statue's immediate seizure and restitution to Italy.  This order followed an earlier and separate order June 12, 2009 ruling on the question of the jurisdiction.

As a result of these two decisions, the Getty Museum subsequently challenged the orders' validity before the Italian Court of Cassation on February 18, 2011. At that

hearing the case was remanded to back to the Tribunal of Pesaro for further examination of the merits of the case.


On May 3, 2012 Maurizio Di Palma, the Pre-Trial judge at the Tribunal of Pesaro, once again upheld the earlier 2010 order of forfeiture and confirmed that the statue was illegally exported from Italy.  His ruling placed the case's resolution back with Italy's Supreme Court for what was supposed to be today's final ruling.

If the Italian state affirms its final ruling with respect to this case at the Third Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court it will be interesting to see how the repatriation order will be enforced and if the J Paul Getty Museum will to the right thing and relinquish the statue voluntarily.

When asked his opinion on today's postponement, Stefano Alessandrini, Perito Scientifico to the Italian state on this and other cultural heritage looting cases indicated that he would not celebrate (or give up) until he saw the statue arrive at Rome's Aeroporto Internazionale Leonardo da Vinci di Fiumicino.

Italy's cultural property attorney Maurizio Fiorilli retires April 12, 2014 meaning the torch will have to be passed to a third state prosecutor. 

For now, Italy continues to wait.

July 2, 2013

The New York Times' Tom Mashberg Points Out Turkish Claims over Lydian Bed in Storage at The Getty

Tom Mashberg writing for The New York Times on July 1 reports in "No Quick Answers in Fights Over Art" that quick resolutions over allegedly looted objects are 'rare':
More typical are disputes like one between Turkey and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles over a fifth-century bronze bed known as a Lydian kline, which has been an item of contention since 1995.
A PowerPoint Presentation available on the Internet and attributed to Brown University's Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World describes the bed for a Lydian princess: "This bed is a metallurgical masterpiece as it is made in iron, completely covered with leaded tin bronze and with a copper lattice cast-in." The presentation, who's author is not identified, writes:
Acquired by J. Paul Getty Museum in 1982, this Lydian masterpiece has never been on display. Looted from a tumulus chamber in Lydia in 1979. Identified as the Alahidir tumulus in Turkey, the bed will be reclaimed by the Turkish Authorities, who have visited the bed in the Getty storerooms.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art repatriated the Lydian Hoard in 1993 back to Turkey. Journalist Sharon Waxman wrote about "Chasing the Lydian Hoard" in Smithsonian Magazine in 2008.