For decades Italy has sought to recover ancient Roman-era statues, vases or other treasures looted from its soil, but now the Italian country is beginning to accept that it also looted relics during its colonial empire in North Africa.
In the last year, museum directors, university researchers and students have carried out a census of the collections of Italy’s 498 state museums, to understand what exactly they contain, the Associated Press (AP) agency reported Wednesday.
The aim is to provide government authorities with preliminary data on the weapons, artifacts and ritual objects that Italian museums may have, in order to respond to the restitution requests that are generally increasing on the legacies of the European colonial empires by movements of racial justice.
The research takes place at a time when museums and governments in Europe and America are undergoing a radical change in the return of cultural artifacts to the countries and communities of origin.
These museums argue that they cannot continue to keep objects in good conscience if they have been acquired as a result of historical violence, colonial occupation, looting or war.
Even the Vatican has jumped on the restitution bandwagon, recently returning to Greece the three fragments of the Parthenon sculptures that had been kept in the Vatican Museums for centuries.
“To begin with, there is the Seventh Commandment: if you steal something, you must return it,” Pope Francis explained.
This Italian qualification, initiated in the previous government, is maintained in the management of Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the neo-fascist successor party of dictator Benito Mussoli.
Mussolini’s regime is most closely associated with the Italian colonies in North Africa, which covered Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya and Somalia, as well as a protectorate in Albania.
The empire began in the late 19th century, but Mussolini tried to expand it, only to be forced to abandon it after World War II, when Italy’s administration of Somalia ended in 1960.
“Although we have a more ephemeral colonial history than the United Kingdom, Germany, France or Belgium, obviously we cannot underestimate the problem,” stressed the head of the Ministry of Culture in charge of museums, Massimo Osanna, at a recent conference. about restitution.
“We must rethink collections, rethink institutions, and rethink narrative transparency as well as case-by-case restitution,” he added.
Osanna appointed a group of museum directors and academics, led by Christian Greco, director of the Egyptian Museum in Turin, as responsible for the audit.
In an interview, Greco acknowledged the issue of restitution and Italy’s continuing delicate colonial past, but praised the responses received so far.
“I expected people to be afraid, but in reality the opposite is happening, people are very excited that this is happening,” he stressed, about the questionnaire sent to the museums, adding that 30 museums with important collections have already responded. .
The aim is to produce a report for the Ministry of Culture in the middle of the year and then organize an international symposium in the second half of the year to discuss the findings.
“Objects don’t just necessarily tell us about the past, they tell a lot about us. When I look at objects from ancient Egypt, do they tell me something about ancient Egyptian civilizations, or do they tell me a lot more about Eurocentrism?” .
Source: TSF
