Theft to order, a shady antiquarian, a drug dealer and a Russian with a penchant for gold.  This is the apparent recipe for the dramatic 2013 Easter weekend jewelry heist at Rome's Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia.

In a press conference in Rome today, officers from Italy's art police squad, the Nucleo Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, and Giancarlo Capaldo and Tiziana Cugini attorney's with the Procura della Repubblica di Roma who oversee crimes against the country's cultural heritage, announced the recovery of 23 of the 27 works of gold stolen from the Rome museum's Castellani collection between March 30 and April 1, 2013.   

Castellani was the first 19th-century Rome goldsmith to create jewelry pieces closely modelled closely on the Etruscan, classical Italian and Greek prototypes. While many outside of Italy are not familiar with the jewelry magnate, the family's finest works are displayed in many museums around the world including at the British Museum, the Musée du Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Musée des Arts. 

At the time of the 2013 theft, Italian investigators were criticised for remaining tight-lipped about what had been stolen.  Unlike in other museums thefts, the jewelry's value was never publicly disclosed and no photos from the Villa Giulia's inventory collection system were circulated to the public.  Even the museum’s CCTV footage remained a close door secret.  

When the theft was made public, many speculated that in Italy's economic recession, the laborously hand-creafted jewelry would likely be dismantled, its accompanying precious and semi-precious stones resold and the gold then melted down and reused.

Recovered Castellani brooch

All this conjecture was disproved during today's press conference.

Arriving around midnight, the thieves had announced their presence by dramatically launching a smoke grenade into the museum's courtyard, temporarily diverting the attention of the night watchman.  This bought the thieves the precious seconds needed to enter the museum and disable the guards. 

Bypassing many of Villa Giulia’s costlier masterpieces, the robbers then climbed the stairs to the first floor rooms, an area of the museum which houses the objects that make up the vast 6000-piece Castellani collection.

Stopping in Room 20, the Sala degli Ori, the thieves smashed two of four double collection display cabinets with an axe, which unintentionally engaged a museum security alarm cutting short the criminal's jewelry shopping.  Even with such limited time, the thieves still managed to bag what has now been confirmed to be three million euros worth of exquisite pendants, earrings, and brooches enriched with precious and semi precious stones, coins or other ancient historic elements.  

While the museum getaway went off without a hitch for the thieves, the days following it did not. 

Initial investigations revealed that a wealthy Russian citizen, with a passion for Rome’s Castellani-styled jewellery had expressed her interest to a local antiquarian who had shown her reproductions. But the buyer wasn’t interested.  She wanted original items, not next-generation replicas.  This antiquarian is believed to be the main receiver of the jewelry stolen from the museum. 

Shortly thereafter the Russian woman was identified in Fiumicino before boarding a flight back to San Petersburg.  Travelling with her was the daughter of the antiquarian. Inside her bag, authorities found a catalog for the Castellani collection and images taken using a smart phone camera showing the Villa Giulia's galleries and surveillance equipment mounted on the gallery's ceiling. 

Having lost their chance to sell to the Russian, the gang were forced to begin looking for local buyers.  

Three years of patient investigations, coupled with hundreds of wiretaps and dozens of searches, led the Italian authorities to a band of six individuals, several from the Pontine Marches, an area south east of Rome near Sabaudia.  Without their rich foreign jewelry lover, the group had begun searching for local buyers and a date had been set to sell some of the pieces.

The location for a forthcoming clandestine sale was a remote bar in Rome's periphery on via Portense. It is here that law enforcement swooped in to make arrests.   As offices attempted to question the pair of fences, the two bolted from the scene in an automobile,  attempting to pitch the envelope containing 7 pieces of the Castallani jewelry out the auto's window while in route.  Caught almost immediately, the two fences and another four individuals have been implicated, two of whom have also been charged with illegal possession of a 357 magnum and drug distribution. 

In one singular museum theft case, we have organised crime, drug dealing, dirty dealers and a Russian Mrs. Dr. No.  Sometimes you can't make this stuff up. 

By: Lynda Albertson

Almost one week after thieves robbed the Villa Giulia in Rome and stolen jewelry, this is what information has been published online in Italian (indirectly quoted from translated material):

The pieces may have been selected as a "theft by commission" or because it might be easier to remove the precious stones and resell these piece on the market as the Etruscan one's are well documented and these less so.

For now investigators are focusing on the the entry point downstairs, an assessment of the 50 or so staff associated with the museum's surveillance, and with reviewing tapes CCTV tapes both during the theft and in the days preceding the assault in the hopes that perhaps the assailants cased the museum in the days preceding the event passing themselves off as visitors.

Given the execution of the event, law enforcement is placing a higher focus on the statements of the various staff responsible for the museums security watch to look for irregularities or contradictions of their recollection of the events as they occurred during the theft.

There is also speculation as to if the smoke was used to possible create a diversionary fire, create a smokescreen to hide the thieves movements or to perhaps signal their pick-up at the completion of the theft.

Law enforcement are also investigating other thefts of local residences in the area to look for similarities.

Gazzetta del Sud.online reported on April 2 the criticism the Italian government is facing over the museum theft in Rome:

A robbery over the Easter weekend at Rome's Villa Giulia Etruscan museum led to calls Tuesday for improved measures to secure Italy's culture ministry. "It took a multimillion (euro) theft to point attention to one of the longstanding problems that weigh on the management, protection and safety" of Italy's cultural sites, said Giuseppe Urbino, the national secretary of the Confsal Unsa Beni Culturali union.

Late Saturday, robbers stole dozens of rare items, including ancient jewelry. "Thefts have become routine, but never has any minister - at least in the last 20 years - tried to carry out a healthy safety policy". The union leader pointed the finger at spending cuts, following outgoing Premier Mario Monti's "spending review", which have left few resources for training, security upgrades and personnel, with many museum guards performing double shifts. "The management class at the culture ministry has demonstrated incompetence, and it is also for this reason that something must change in order to help culture in our 'bel paese' rise again," Urbino said.

Wanted in Rome.com reports:

The thieves gained entry after forcing open one of the entrance doors. They smashed two cabinets on the upper floor containing items from the important Castellani collection comprising more than 6,000 whole and fragmented artefacts including ancient and modern gold, and amber pendants dating from the early 7th century BC. 

However this activated the alarm system and before fleeing the thieves only stole some 19th-century jewelry, not among the museum's most valuable items.

Investigators believe that the thieves visited the museum before the robbery, possibly posing as tourists.

The Castellani Collection is located on the site plan in the dark green (one half circle and  another rectangle) above the entrance.

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

The Short Guide to The Villa Giulia National Etruscan Museum (second reprint 2008) includes a description of the jewellery in the Augusto Castellani Collection.

The article dated March 31 in La Repubblica reporting the theft at the Villa Giulia last Saturday night did not identify the items stolen.

The Collection Castellani is described as being in Room 19 (half circle) and Room 20 (smaller rectangle) on the upper floor above the entrance to the Villa Giulia. The Short Guide places the jewellery in Room 20.

The Castellani jewellery collection at the Villa Giulia includes 'ancient articles in gold along with the "modern" pieces produced over the years by the Castellani goldsmiths."

The collection was assembled in the latter half of the 19th century - a time when intensive and indeed fruitful excavations were being carried out on the great sites of Etruria and Latium - thanks to the enthusiastic initiative of the family progenitor, Fortunato Pio. This friend and disciple of Michelangelo Caetani, Duke of Sermoneta, began to collect antiquities "to replace in our city of Rome what the Pope sold to France in 1860".

The archaeological gold objects include a 'splendid pectoral in gold and amber' and 'three finely-wrought figured pendants in amber' from the early 7th century BC Galeassi tomb discovered in Palestrina in 1861. A necklace with miniature amphora pendants (Castellani reconstruction from two necklaces of similar typology, style and chronology) is from Tarquinia in the 4th century BC.

The exhibition aims to raise awareness of the general public the hard work done in recent years by the Judiciary, flanked by Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection, with the Guardia di Finanza and the archaeologists of the Superintendent [Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Etruria meridionale], which has led to some important results, perceived not only through a high number of artifacts recovered, by especially in the significant drop in illegal excavations at the archaeological sites of Cerveteri, Vulci, and Tarquinia, once the subject of real raids [translated with the help of Google].