The Medici Conspiracy The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities-- From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums

by Watson, Peter; Todeschini, Cecilia

• ISBN13: 9781586484385
• ISBN10: 1586484389
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-06-12
• Publisher: PublicAffairs

Summary

The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web oftombarolitomb raiders who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for theLondon Sunday Timesand author of two previous exposes of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama,The Medici Conspiracyauthoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.

Author Biography

Peter Watson writes for the New York Times and has written weekly columns on the art market for the London Sunday Times, Observer and Evening Standard. In June 1997, he was appointed Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Caravaggio Conspiracy, From Manet to Manhattan,and Sotheby's: The Inside Story. Cecilia Todeschini is a researcher and translator who has worked for the BBC, ITV, CBS, ABC, and NBC. She has covered papal conclaves as well as the great mafia trials in Italy among many other subjects.

Table of Contents

Authors' Note	p. vii
Prologue on Fifth Avenue	p. ix
Operation Geryon	p. 1
Sotheby's, Switzerland, Smugglers	p. 25
Connoisseurs and Criminals-the Passion for Greek Vases	p. 33
Corridor 17	p. 48
Forensic Archaeology in the Freeport	p. 53
The Paper Trail, the Polaroids, and the "Cordata"	p. 66
The Getty-the "Museum of the Tombaroli"	p. 80
The Metropolitan in New York and Other Rogue Museums	p. 100
"Collectors Are the Real Looters"	p. 112
The Laundries of London and New York	p. 135
Phone Taps and the Great Rumor	p. 146
The Paris Raid on Robert Hecht	p. 156
Raids in Zurich and Geneva, Arrest and Interrogations in Cyprus and Berlin	p. 182
Interrogations in Los Angeles and Manhattan	p. 203
The Puzzle of the "Orphans"	p. 222
The "Cordata" Continues-in Egypt, Greece, Israel, and Oxford	p. 230
The Fall of Robin Symes	p. 248
The Woodcutter's Archive	p. 265
The Trial of Giacomo Medici	p. 269
Trading with Japan, Trials in Rome	p. 284
Operation Eclipse	p. 306
Conclusion: $500 Million + 100,000 Looted Tombs = Chippindale's Law	p. 325
Epilogue on Fifth Avenue	p. 353
Acknowledgments and Dedication	p. 360
Dossier	p. 361
Notes	p. 384
Index	p. 391
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