The Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Command return fifty ex-voto paintings to the Dioceses of Campania and Lucania.
On July 3, 2020, at 17.30:XNUMX p.m., at the Archbishop's Palace in Naples, in the presence of His Eminence Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Metropolitan Archbishop of Naples and President of the Campania Episcopal Conference, Major Francesco Provenza, Commander of the Carabinieri Unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (TPC) of Monza, will return to the Bishops - or their delegates - of the Dioceses of Naples, Ischia, Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi-Conza-Nusco-Bisaccia and Pompei for Campania, and Acerenza for Basilicata, fifty important ex-voto paintings (XNUMXth/XNUMXth century), illegally removed from places of worship in the two Regions.
The restitution is the result of an investigation conducted by the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Monza, started in September 2015 after an inspection at an exhibition in Milan.
The attention of the military was drawn by the presence, among the works of art on display, of objects that presented characteristics attributable to the typology of ex-votos, goods specifically made for religious purposes and usually destined for those places.
The investigative activity allowed the seizure, in June 2016, by order of the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Milan, of over six thousand ex-voto paintings stolen, between 1940 and 1970, from national and foreign places of worship.
The assets were almost entirely kept in two museums, one in Lombardy and the other in Piedmont, where they had arrived following a donation from a well-known Milanese collector who had since died.
Of the recovered works, 594 were found to be of Mexican origin and, after being recognized by the competent authorities of that State as belonging to their cultural heritage, they were returned during a ceremony held on March 6, 2019, in Rome, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism.
The Italian ex-voto paintings, on the other hand, were found to have been stolen mainly from places of worship in Abruzzo, Campania, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Liguria, Lombardy, Marche, Piedmont, Puglia, Basilicata, Sardinia and Tuscany.
Oil painting on canvas | Sanctuary of San Rocco | Tolve (PZ)
Oil painting on wood | Sanctuary of Madonna del Soccorso | Ischia (NA)
Article published on 2 July 2020 - 09:05
