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

October 14, 2024

Monday, October 14, 2024 - ,,,, No comments

Stolen Funerary Artefact Returns to Ad Decimum Catacombs

Yesterday, a homecoming took place in Grottaferrata, Italy, marking the final passage in the return of an important marble funerary artefact. This ancient epigraphic fragment offers its readers a glimpse into the burial practices and religious life of Italy's early Christian communities and was stolen in 1989 from the Ad Decimum Catacombs.

Nestled within the Roman countryside, the Ad Decimum Catacombs were discovered by chance in 1905, when the land above the subterranean gallery, collapsed under a plough working on a vineyard.  The site holds some 1000 early Christian burials dating from the 2nd to the 5th century CE.  Most are simple recesses, while others speak more vividly to the people whose remains where placed here, along the 10th Roman mile marker on the Via Latina.  

While humidity and time have worn off many of the painted images inside the catacombs, the site itself still remains extremely thought provoking, with unique reminders of the lives of those resting there.  Wandering inside visitors can still make out some of the textual messages left behind by loved ones, including one from Ilaro to his brother, which clearly reads:“To my dearest brother Marciano. Ilaro made peace”, making scholars wonder just what kind of feud the brothers were involved in when Marciano was laid to rest so many centuries ago.

The returning fragment celebrated over the weekend is etched in Greek by a grieving husband for his 22-year-old wife, telling us its own poignant story, and reminding visitors of the human emotions tied to these long-gone lives.

Her epitaph, which contains one of the earliest written references to Christ, reads:  

“Be of good cheer Musena Irene, your soul is immortal with Christ.” 

Identified by the Operational Department - Archaeology Section of the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, the fragment was identified after it had been loaned by a foundation patron to the Museum Catharijneconvent, in the former St. Catharine convent in Utrecht by a foundation to the Dutch museum of religious art.  

Thankfully, and with the help of excellent Italian-Dutch cooperation between all interested parties, Musena Irene's departing message from her husband is now back where it belongs.  Transferred from the Dutch to the Italian authorities in November 2023, the fragment initially toured with dozens of other recovered artefacts in an exhibition celebrating the return of objects from abroad curated by the Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Command at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Farnesina in the city of Rome. 

This week, the final leg of its journey was completed with a celebratory ceremony back at the catacombs, attended by key figures from Italy and the Netherlands, including Mons. Pasquale Iacobone, President of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, H.E. Annemieke Ruigrok, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the Holy See, Colonel Paolo Befera, Commander of the Carabinieri Operations Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, Lisette Voss, Senior Public Prosecutor, Fons van Gessel, Policy Advisor for Public Order and Safety, Sergeant Peter Veltman, National Police of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Warrent Officer Major Monica Satta, Carabinieri TPC, and Prof. Mirko Di Bernardo, the Mayor of Grottaferrata. 


The return event included brief speeches by several of the authorities present, as well as the final unveiling of the recovered inscription, (restored for the occasion) alongside a visit to the Ad Decimum catacombs.  This allowed attendees to witness firsthand why its important that funerary remains to go back to their intended sites (when security is sufficient) as they serve as a reminder of the enduring connections between history, heritage, and the places that preserve them.

July 29, 2013

Monday, July 29, 2013 - ,,, No comments

Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, The Netherlands: "Bling bling" museum theft and religious art

by Jacobiene Kuijpers, ARCA 2013 Student

On 29 January of 2013 at half past two in the afternoon, two young men dressed in black and wearing balaclavas drove on a moped in the city centre of Utrecht in the Netherlands. They stopped in front of the Museum Catharijneconvent, the national museum of religious art housed in a former cloister. One of the men walked towards a glass side door of the museum then smashed the door several times with a hammer until the security glass broke. The flight of stairs towards the ‘treasure room’ was right in front of him and he ran down them, focusing his attention immediately on a gold plated silver beam-monstrance adorned with numerous diamond elements and other precious stones insured at €250,000.[1] The glass case in which the vitrine was placed was not as stable as the thief thought. When trying to smash it with his hammer, he knocked over the entire base. As the entire vitrine including the object hit the floor, the glass shattered and the thief gathered the pieces of the object, putting parts of it in his too small bag and the rest under his arm and ran back up. The thief appeared clumsy, dropping the piece and picking it back up while crouching trough the glass door he smashed on his way in. [2] His conspirator was waiting for him on the same spot so he ran to the moped to take off. Before he could leave the courtyard, museum guards caught up with him and after a short wrestle they managed to confiscate the bag, which held some pieces of the monstrance. The thieves drove away with the rest, it took them less then two minutes to steal (part of) the monstrance.

The police managed to find the moped in the neighbourhood, the thieves must have had a get-away car either parked in the area or picking them up, suggesting the involvement of a third person. The moped turned out to have been stolen in Germany. During the police investigation it became known that the pieces of the monstrance in the bag that was saved by the museum guards were the most valuable, it held all of the precious stones. This was presented in Dutch media on 13 February, together with the CCTV footage. A police spokesman mentioned that the object held by the thieves was as good as worthless on the open market. The piece was incomplete and the value of the gold and silver after melting the object would hardly weigh up to the costs. The insurance company of the museum installed a reward for the tip that would lead to the return of the monstrance. That same evening the police managed to arrest three men of 21, 25 and 35 years old. They were seen placing the monstrance wrapped in plastic in a car, the police followed the car and halted it on the highway towards Belgium. The monstrance was returned to the museum, some of the adornments were missing and it was damaged. After restoration it was back on display in the museum in May. The prosecution of the three men is still in process.

Looking at circumstantial events learns that there was a theft of another monstrance from a Dutch museum a year earlier, which could have served as an example to the thieves in this case.[3] Last year, the thieves in the Museum Gouda got away with their monstrance in 30 seconds and were not prosecuted, suggesting it is an easy and fast way to make money, motivating the Utrecht thieves and giving them a suitable target, the monstrance. After the Museum Gouda theft, the Dutch media mentioned that the monstrance is worth much more than any thief can make by selling the raw materials. This statement claims that the thieves were possibly going to melt the monstrance and sell the gold and precious stones, it provides a motive for thieves.  Harvesting the raw materials of the monstrance would be easy to do for the thieves, and it is not hard or dangerous for them to cash in on, as opposed to trying to sell the object. The media may have instructed thieves on how to do an ‘easy’ crime and should perhaps have been more careful with the information they disclose and the possible consequences.

[1] A detailed description of the object and the ‘schatkamer’; the room in which the piece was exhibited, can be found on the website of the Museum Catharijne Convent.
[2] The review of the theft is made based on newspaper articles and the above cited description on the museum website as well as the footage of the security cameras.

[3] This theft is extensively described in http://www.omroepwest.nl/nieuws/30-03-2012/nog-geen-tips-over-gestolen-vaas-museum-gouda

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