Art: Sanctuary

Vatican officials made a sensational announcement last week—664 massive wooden crates, containing some of the world’s greatest art works from all over Italy, now rest in Vatican vaults, comparatively safe from the war. This job of cultural salvage was the result of delicate negotiations between the Vatican and the Nazis, lasting from November 1943 to last June. Highlights among the thousands of rescued treasures:

¶ The lovely Greek Venus of Cyrene (see cut), a, marble carved in the style of Praxiteles by an unknown sculptor. The armless, headless Venus belongs to Rome’s Terme Museum. ¶ Raphael’s graceful Sposalizio (Marriage of the Virgin) from Milan’s Brera Gallery. Painted about 1503, the Sposalizio, an early Raphael, is one of the world’s best loved pictures. ¶ The famed “Ludovisi Throne,”* 5th Century B.C. Greek bas-relief, called The Birth of Venus. This work, thought to be an altar to Aphrodite, is one of the monuments of Greek art. ¶ Giorgione’s priceless small landscape The Tempest. This enigmatic allegory, one of Giorgione’s greatest paintings, is from Venice’s Academy. The Vatican’s negotiations for the art were interrupted in September by the Allied invasion of Italy, but soon renewed. Director Nogara said that Nazi military authorities often assisted Italian and Vatican officials, sometimes even provided transportation for the heavy crates of paintings and sculpture.

Last week officials of the Cherbourg Museum told how the Vichy government insisted that they crate up Cherbourg’s art works, provide transportation to take them to Vichyfrance. The Nazis changed the ad dress on the crates—to Germany.

Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi of Rome founded one of the great Greek art collections of the 17th Century.