The Medici Conspiracy (16 page)

Just as the three archaeologists had been in an historically unprecedented situation in their examination of the objects under seizure at the Geneva Freeport, so Pellegrini was also in a unique position, for in addition to the documentation seized from Medici, he also had access to the documentation from James Hodges and official Sotheby's records, both of which showed who bought and sold what at a number of Sotheby's sales in London. Pellegrini furthermore had access to scientific publications and to the public prosecutor's files for other ongoing cases in Italy. He therefore had an unrivaled vantage point from which to view the interconnections of the antiquities underworld in an unvarnished way.

The first thing that he observed was that some documentation was original, and other papers were photocopies. This was a simple point—obvious, you would think—but it would prove important in establishing the links between Medici and others in the underground network. The second thing of importance that Pellegrini observed was that the photographic material was of three kinds. There were regular photographs—both prints and negatives—and there were Polaroids. Professional archaeologists do not use Polaroids: The quality is simply not good enough for scientific recording. The use of Polaroid photographs, therefore, was strongly suggestive of clandestine activity, mainly because they offer the advantage that they are instant and do not need to be processed through an independent laboratory
that might be a security risk. The third type of photographic material comprised official photographs published in scientific reports.

But there was another aspect to the photography, especially the Polaroid photography, which attracted Pellegrini's early interest. The Polaroids fell into distinct groups. First, there were photographs of objects that were encrusted with dirt or calcarious deposits, in which the antiquities were often broken and incomplete. In other words, these objects were photographed near where they were excavated, in nearby fields or farmyards, in the houses of tombaroli, even on the back of a truck in one case. Next, however, there were many Polaroids showing
the same objects
restored, with the fragments joined together. In many cases, although the fragments had been joined together, the joins of the fragments were still visible, as were the gaps (the lacunae) where parts of the vases, say, were still missing. In due course, Pellegrini pieced together why the objects had been photographed in this state—but not at first.

Next came a series of photographs—Polaroids again—in which once more the same objects were depicted, but this time they had been fully restored, with the joins covered over and repainted and polished to look almost as good as new. In some cases, as Pellegrini worked through the documents, he found that many of these restored objects were also depicted in auction house catalogs or in museum publications. Finally, there was a most interesting set of photographs in which Medici, and sometimes others, were pictured alongside antiquities that were
on display
in particular museums. Over the months, Pellegrini was able to sift the photographs in such a way that, for dozens of objects, he could reconstruct an entire sequence: from objects just out of the ground, dirty and broken, to being restored, to being on display in the world's museums. Medici, it turned out, was a stickler for keeping records, and it was the photographs that provided Pellegrini with the first inkling of the totality of Medici's involvement. Many of the photographs had writing on them that directed him elsewhere in the documentation, and no less important, many showed interiors that he began to recognize as the investigation proceeded. This also helped him to piece together the complex web of interrelationships that would in time be fully exposed.

Pellegrini had to start somewhere, so he chose what was far and away the most immediately shocking set of photographs. This was a folder with, on the outside, the words
“Pitture romane Via Bo.”
It contained a number of transparent envelopes holding negatives, some travel documents that appeared to indicate that certain frescoes had traveled between Switzerland and the United States, and a handful of invoices that appeared to indicate that the frescoes were valued at $141,000. A “ProForma Invoice,” handwritten but on Atlantis Antiquities–headed notepaper, at 40 East 69th Street, listed sixteen objects, including “Noir et jaune. Dessins géométrique,” “Rouge, vert, brun. 5 figures encadrées,” and so on. The list seemed to relate to the frescoes in the warehouse, or some of them, but all did not become clear for a few weeks. On a subsequent visit, Pellegrini had with him a special digital film camera that was able to convert negatives into positive images. He fitted the various negatives into the device and, eventually, reached the wall paintings.

“Mi é preso un colpo!”
he breathed. “I was hit.” He couldn't believe his eyes, and he called out to the professors.

Zevi, the first to reach him, took the camera. “He was speechless,” says Pellegrini. “Scandalized.”

What the images revealed was a dismaying sequence—“a real horror,” as he wrote in his report—in which the first pictures showed three walls of what any expert could recognize as a Vesuvian/Pompeian villa. They could make this identification because the three walls were frescoed in what is called the Campanian II style. The decoration on Roman villas went through what art historians and archaeologists recognize as four styles, between the second century BC and AD 79. Campanian II comes second in this chronology, and decorations in that style differ from what came before and after in consisting of more panoramic landscapes, mythological scenes, and certain architectural features.

The photographs showed three walls partially cleaned of the lapillae filling the room. Two of them were in red, pale blue, and gray. These walls showed two female figures in the foreground with, below them, miniaturized masks and smaller figures. On the right wall was shown an architectural drawing of a two-story building, with a similar symmetric design opposite, on the left wall. In other words, in this first sequence of photographs, the room—or one end of it—is intact. “The frescoes are in an
excellent state of conservation, both pictorially and structurally.” However, besides the walls of the room, the photographs also showed a mass of earth mixed with
lapillae
covering the floor and filling the space to a depth of a few feet; lapillae also encrust the ceiling area. Lapillae are a tell-tale sign to any Italian archaeologist. They are small balls of volcanic ash, formed after the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, which buried so much of the surrounding countryside south of Naples. This was further confirmation, in addition to the subject matter and pictorial style of the frescoes, that this room had been part of a villa that was one of those overwhelmed by the eruption of the famous volcano, but not one known to the official archaeologists. The first sequence of photographs therefore confirmed that this had been a very important discovery, made in a clandestine “excavation” by some tombaroli. It was the next set of photographs, however, that constituted the “horror.”

This second set showed the image of the central wall—the one with the two female figures and the figurines—
but laid out like a giant jigsaw
. The images had been cut from the original wall, in a number of highly irregular pieces, each in size about as big as a laptop, and then put back together again on panels that were framed—edged—in wood. The fresco had been taken off the villa wall, detached from its right and left companions, and cut up into chunks. That it was the same image was quite clear to Pellegrini, even though there were gaps between the separate pieces: The two females were clearly visible and recognizable. In his report, Pellegrini commented that this operation, normally highly technical (when done by archaeologists), was here done crudely and in a hurry, without any regard for the integrity or sanctity of the images but simply so that the fresco could be quickly and more easily smuggled abroad. This was not all. Other sets of photographs showed that the same procedure had been employed with both the right-hand and the left-hand walls.

Another fresco was shown to have been similarly brutalized. This wall, primarily ochre in color with dark green-to-black painting, showed different shaped vases surrounded by dark borders and, higher up, a rearing horse in a circle of leaves. These images too had been broken into laptopsized chunks, and they were photographed in the process of reassembly, on a trestle table with brushes, jars, and other restoration implements in the shot. In the next photo, the pieces are shown roughly assembled, with
about an inch between segments, then more closely aligned as the restoration is completed. It is almost as if the restorers have taken pride in the vandalism.

That was not all. Two of the walls depicted in the photographs were found in the Freeport, packed in bubble wrap and leaning against a wall, as though they were about to be shipped out. The third wall, however, was missing and had presumably already been sold. It has not been seen since. The same may apply to other photographs of other frescoes, which may have been subjected to the same treatment. They include one picture of a head in a semicircular lunette. This was just lying on the floor in the Freeport warehouse. In fact, the Italians don't know how much Medici had or what he sold. From the dimensions of the walls, it appears that the photographs relate only to the solid lines in the diagram below, and that the room could easily have been of the dimensions outlined by the dotted lines.

Possibly worse than all this was the final sequence in the horse and vases fresco. For, in the end, these images were
not reassembled together
. This time the pieces had been formed into single panels of smaller dimensions that, Pellegrini concluded, were more easily “placeable” on the market at more accessible prices and were worth more as individual pieces than the complete image if sold as “just one” fresco. In the paperwork, photocopies of two of the vases—inside the square boundaries—were included with a consignment note to an auction house, with the value “$10” attached, which, as Pellegrini noted, must have meant $10,000.

This, then, was the distressing starting point for Pellegrini. It revealed the scale of the traffic in illegally excavated antiquities, and the brutality shown by the tombaroli and those above them in respect to important and beautiful ancient objects, as well as the utter indifference to the archaeological importance of Italy's heritage, and it showed how inappropriate the word “excavation” is when applied to these activities. The frescoes of at least one important villa had been rudely and crudely ripped from
their context and sold off to people (“collectors”) who might profess to care about archaeological objects but obviously had no interest in the original and proper context. One wonders what else was found and looted from this villa, clearly no poor man's hovel. This indifference applied to everyone in the chain: from the tombaroli to the middlemen, the smugglers, and the restorers, to the auction house personnel, to collectors and to museum curators—wherever these objects end up. It was a matter of money and greed, pure and simple.

Pellegrini had copies made of the photographs of the Vesuvian-Pompeian villa and pinned them above his desk. They fired his indignation and spurred him to explore the paper trail with ever greater determination. For the mild-mannered Pellegrini, the next months would become a crusade.