The Medici Conspiracy (8 page)

When Conforti heard about the contents of Corridor 17, even he was astonished. He loves to garden, and that evening, when the Carabinieri called him from the departure lounge of Geneva airport—it was after 8:00 PM—he was on his terrace watering his large array of exotic plants. “We had heard talk of the Freeport often enough—Freeport this, Freeport that, Freeport, Freeport, Freeport. But we had always thought of it as a place of transit and had never imagined whole warehouses—
what
a discovery. When I heard the news, in that moment I thought that perhaps—perhaps—the ball of twine would now be unraveled. In that moment, I felt that the work I had being doing since I took over the Art Squad in 1990 had come to fruition, had found a reason.”

But—and it was a big “but”—the objects were on Swiss soil. Medici, on the other hand, was an Italian citizen. Would the Swiss want it known that the Geneva Freeport was being used as a way station for valuable and culturally important objects that had been looted from Italy and passed on to the salesrooms, collectors, and museums in London, the United States, and elsewhere? On this first visit of the Italian authorities to the Freeport, Medici had not been present. What arguments would he use, what arguments
could
he use, to make it appear that the antiquities in his warehouses were legitimate? Would the Swiss, in the interests of a quiet life, just let the matter drop, or might they choose to believe the man who was bringing in business to Switzerland? These were not trivial or rhetorical questions—a good lawyer could have a field day.

Back in Italy, and as a result of what had been found in Geneva, an investigative public prosecutor, Dr. Paolo Giorgio Ferri, was appointed to pursue Medici and his Geneva operation. It was clear from what the investigators had found in Switzerland that Medici was the biggest “catch'” the Carabinieri had ever had, so far as looted antiquities were concerned. How close would they get to him?

Paolo Giorgio Ferri, forty-eight when the investigation began, is a small, precise man. Bearded, with a soft voice and a ready smile, he had a law degree from La Sapienza, Rome's oldest university, and was a highflier in the public prosecutor's office, having previously worked on heavyduty
criminal cases—mostly murder and drug trafficking. But as he set to work, thinking how best to pursue Medici, there was another twist of fate in store for him. While the Carabinieri had been at the Freeport, another set of investigators had also been there at the same time. Their paths had never crossed, but that was about to change.

T
HE OTHER INVESTIGATION taking place in the Geneva Freeport had its origin in the fate of James Hodges, an employee of Sotheby's, the international auction house established in 1744. Hodges, in his early thirties in 1995, had worked for Sotheby's in a number of capacities, which included being an administrator in the Antiquities Department. This meant that so far as antiquities were concerned, Hodges was in charge of the paperwork, in regard to buying and selling, and the transfer of funds in and out of Sotheby's—all the financial transactions between the company and its customers. He had access to the most confidential information.

In 1991, Hodges had stood trial, accused of stealing from Sotheby's two antiquities—a helmet and a stone head—of forging a release note purportedly giving him permission to have these objects at home, and on eighteen charges of false accounting. Essentially, in the false accounting charges, he had been accused of setting up two bank accounts in fictitious names and regularly paying himself small sums that no one else noticed for a while but which quickly added up. Hodges was found guilty of stealing the helmet and head and of forging the release note, but he was acquitted on the eighteen charges of false accounting. He was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.

Before he was prosecuted, Hodges had photocopied or stolen a number of internal Sotheby's documents that, in his view, showed the company in a bad light, that it was behaving dishonestly or unethically in certain ways. His initial aim was to use these documents as a fallback, or bargaining tool, should his own dishonesty ever be discovered by Sotheby's. In the event, when he did get found out, Sotheby's refused to do any deal and insisted on a prosecution. Hodges therefore contacted one
of the authors of this book (Peter Watson), seeing publication of Sotheby's own (and more widespread) wrongdoing as fitting revenge.

Whether or not Hodges deserved his jail sentence, and whether or not he should have stolen the paperwork that he undoubtedly did steal, these documents nonetheless appeared to show prima facie wrongdoing inside Sotheby's in a score of areas. Among the documents he had were a set showing that there were three men in Switzerland, who between them consigned thousands of antiquities over the years to Sotheby's salesrooms in London, none of which had any provenance whatsoever. These three men were Serge Vilbert, Christian Boursaud—and Giacomo Medici. In one notorious sale, Sotheby's offered “a whole batch of smuggled antiquities,” according to Brian Cook, the distinguished keeper in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum, including a dozen Apulian vases.
¹

Sotheby's was pressed to withdraw the vases by a special representative of the Italian government, who flew to London for the purpose, and by Professor Felice Lo Porto, superintendent of antiquities in the Puglia region, who let it be known that a large, fourth-century BC tomb near Arpi (an old, rich settlement near Foggia) had recently been looted. He said he believed the Sotheby's vases came from there. Other British museums, such as the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, joined the British Museum in calling for Sotheby's to withdraw the objects, and Lord Jenkins of Putney, a former minister of the arts, formally raised the issue in Parliament.

Despite the negative publicity, aired in the London
Observer
, Sotheby's took the view that there was “no evidence” that the vases it was selling were either looted or smuggled. When Peter Watson spoke to Felicity Nicholson, the company's head of antiquities, in preparation for writing an article on the subject, she said, “I don't think one ever knows where antiquities come from. We assume our clients have title to whatever it is they are selling.” She went on to describe Cook as “fussy, someone who doesn't necessarily reflect the whole of scholarly opinion.”

Despite the opposition, the sale went ahead and the vases sold quite well. The art world is nothing if not cynical, and maybe the publicity had even helped. After a fruitless few days in London, the Italian special envoy flew home and the scandal died down. But James Hodges, watching this exchange from his unique vantage point as administrator in the Antiquities
Department, knew that
all
the Apulian vases that Brian Cook reckoned to have been illegally excavated and smuggled out of Italy had been consigned to Sotheby's by one man. This man, Christian Boursaud, was a Swiss dealer with offices in Geneva and a shop called the Hydra Gallery.

Furthermore, from his vantage point, Hodges was well placed to watch events unfold. A couple of months after the scandal, Boursaud wrote to Felicity Nicholson, announcing the closure of his gallery, an event he blamed on ill health. When Nicholson replied, Hodges noted the wording of her letter: “With regard to the property we have here, I understand that you have been acting
as the agent
for the owner and we will of course wait to hear from him regarding the disposition of the rest of the property we have here from him for sale” (italics added).

Mulling over this wording, and listening to Felicity Nicholson in conversation with other specialists in the Antiquities Department, Hodges came to believe that in fact Boursaud was merely a “front” and that the true owner of the Boursaud objects, the real force behind the trade, was a certain Giacomo Medici. And the reason Boursaud was backing out was not ill health but because he and Medici had fallen out after the publicity surrounding the Sotheby's sale.

Hodges, in his uniquely qualified position at Sotheby's, never heard from Boursaud again, but he later realized that the range of goods consigned by the Hydra Gallery was much the same as those now being offered by a new gallery: Editions Services. In the July 1987 sale, there was a marble pilaster that had hitherto belonged to Hydra, had failed to sell, and was now being sold as the property of Editions Services. So there could now be no doubt: The Hydra Gallery had reinvented itself as Editions Services. Whoever was behind the companies was a prudent man. And the person behind the Hydra Gallery and Editions Services was one and the same: Giacomo Medici.

Throughout the 1980s, Giacomo Medici probably sold more antiquities at Sotheby's than any other single owner. Over the years, thousands of objects from Medici had passed through the London salesroom and millions of pounds had changed hands. None of the antiquities had any provenance because all were illegally excavated and smuggled out of Italy.

There was more. The documentation supplied by Hodges showed that the registered address of Editions Services was 7 Avenue Krieg in Geneva,
and that it was registered in the name of Henri Albert Jacques. The documents showed that these details—Avenue Krieg and H. A. Jacques—were also used by another company that consigned many unprovenanced antiquities to Sotheby's. This was a company called Xoilan Trader, Inc., the beneficial owner of which was Robin Symes. Other documents that Hodges took showed that Symes and Felicity Nicholson, boss of antiquities at Sotheby's, had collaborated to smuggle a statue of the Egyptian Lion Goddess out of Italy. It was a cozy, close-knit world, which was exposed in a British TV program only days after the Carabinieri raid on Corridor 17.

It was not long before Conforti got in touch with the British investigation.

Why was it that police in Italy and journalists in Britain were in the same place, at the same time, investigating the same people engaged in the same illicit practices? To an extent, of course, it was an accident, the result of Hodges's predicament at Sotheby's. But there was a deeper reason, too, which accounted for why Hodges was able to observe what he did observe inside Sotheby's. The fact is that attitudes toward, and laws about, dealing in unprovenanced (and therefore very probably illegally excavated and smuggled) antiquities have been steadily changing as views on morality have evolved over the years. Those countries that are the source of archaeological material—the civilizations around the Mediterranean, in Central and South America, West Africa, and Asia—have been taking an increasingly robust line to protect what they see as their heritage. This has partly to do with cultural identity in newly independent countries, in particular after World War II, and partly to do with tourism, because properly excavated archaeological sites can be major attractions, and therefore sources of revenue.

Isolated attempts to control the movement of cultural property date back to early laws in Greece (1834), Italy (1872), and France (1887). After World War I, the newly formed League of Nations held discussions on the imposition of controls over the illicit exploitation of cultural property—in particular antiquities—but the resulting Treaty of Sèvres was never ratified. Throughout the 1930s, action on this topic at the League was coordinated
by the Office International des Musées (OIM). Although a draft “Convention on the Repatriation of Objects of Artistic, Historical or Scientific Interest, Which Have Been Lost, Stolen or Unlawfully Alienated or Exported” was prepared, there were strong objections from the art market countries (in particular the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States), and in 1939, with the outbreak of war, the initiative came to an end. After the war, in 1946, UNESCO took an interest in a convention to protect cultural property in times of war, which led to The Hague Convention of 1954 and, two years later, to a number of recommendations “on international principles applicable to archaeological excavations.” This specifically proposed that the art trade should do nothing to “encourage smuggling of archaeological material.” In the 1960s, as a result of initiatives by Peru and Mexico, UNESCO adopted stronger recommendations “to improve the international moral climate in this respect” and this led, in 1964, to a Committee of Experts being set up, from some thirty countries, whose task it was to prepare a draft convention. This body eventually produced, in 1970, UNESCO's “Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property,” adopted on November 14 that year, by the general conference of UNESCO at its sixteenth session. This is not the only law or regulation governing these issues; there are also a number of trade agreements relating to the import and export of cultural material. But the 1970 convention has generally been taken as a watershed in this field. Although many archaeologists are against the international traffic in
all
archaeological material, period, most now take what they see as a more practical, pragmatic approach—that one shouldn't deal in, or have anything to do with, antiquities that have no provenance and first came to light
since 1970
, the date of the UNESCO convention. Objects in collections formed before 1970, and which have no provenance, may have been illicitly excavated, but the main priority is to stop the looting now, and for this the 1970 date is sufficiently modern.