Dear Commons Community,
Italy’s culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, is refusing a request by the German State Antiquities Collection in Munich to return an ancient Roman statue that embodied Hitler’s Aryan aesthetic, calling it a national treasure.
The Discobolus Palombara is a 2nd-century Roman copy of a long-lost Greek bronze original that was found in 1781. It is a 1st-century AD copy of Myron‘s original bronze. Following its discovery at a Roman property of the Massimo family, the Villa Palombara on the Esquiline Hill, it was initially restored by Giuseppe Angelini; the Massimo installed it in their Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne and then at Palazzo Lancellotti. The Italian archaeologist Giovanni Battista Visconti identified the sculpture as a copy from the original of Myron. It was instantly famous, though the Massimo jealously guarded access to it. Hitler had bought the Roman copy from its private Italian owner in 1938 and was returned to Italy in 1948 as part of works illegally obtained by the Nazis.
The dispute arose when the director of the National Roman Museum requested the statue’s 17th-century marble base be returned from the Antikensammlungen state antiquities collection. The German museum instead asked for the return of the Discobolus Palombara, saying it had been illegally transported to Italy in 1948, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported Friday.
Sangiuliano, expressed doubts that the German culture minister, Claudia Roth, was aware of the Bavarian request.
“I made a joke — they’ll have to step over my dead body,’’ the minister told Italian Rai state TV on Saturday evening. In his comments, he slammed the German request for its return as “inadmissible.”
“This work was obtained fraudulently by the Nazis, and it’s part of our national heritage,’’ Sangiuliano told Rai. He expressed hope that the base would be returned.
The chance that Discobolus will be returned to Germany is zero!
Tony