Italy creates new museum for trafficked ancient artifacts

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Italy has been so successful in recovering illegally exported ancient artworks and artifacts that it has created a museum just for them. The Museum of Rescued Art was inaugurated on Wednesday in the cavernous Octagonal Hall of the complex of the ancient Baths of Diocletian in Rome. It’s a way to showcase Italy’s successful efforts, through diplomacy and sometimes court challenges, to have valuable antiquities return to Italy, sometimes after decades in foreign museums or private collections. Exhibits in the new museum will change every few months, as the objects on display return to what experts consider their territory of origin, including places that were part of ancient Etruscan or Magna Grecia civilizations in central or southern Italy.