FAMOUS PAINTINGS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 284, 28 August 1944, Page 4

FAMOUS PAINTINGS

Protective Measures In Italy

(British ■ Official Wireless.) (Received August 26, 7.10 p.m.) RUGBY, August 20. Though much heavy fighting has been taking place in parts of Italy where almost every town and church may be a storehouse of the world’s finest paintings, the damage has been unexpectedly small it is learned officially. , Credit for this is given in the first place to the Italian authorities, who not only did their best to safeguard standing monuments by blastwalls and sandbagging, but transferred movable works ot art to relative safety. Some, for instance. were sent to the Vatican territory, Rome. Some were hidden in caches. One of the richest deposits was in Villa Gambia Castelli at Arceno, where there are pictures from Siena, Grosseto and Massa Maritina. The fivefold altar piece of Lorenzetti came from Massa Maritina, and di Giovanni’s * Assumption” from Grosseto. This deposit had a series of narrow escapes. The Germans proposed to carry off a large number of pictures, but were resisted bv the superintendent, Professor Carli. of Siena. As the British torces approached the town, Professor Carli asked the commanding officer for a guard, and in spite of battle conditions this was granted. This was fortunate, for lo Germans attacked the villa intending to rob mid burn it. They were beaten off by British soldiers and the pictures were saved. . . But there remain innumerable paintings, more, specially frescoes, scattered throughout lesser towns and villages in Italy which only too often bore the brunt of the war. There are losses we must deplore. Perugino’s “Baptism of Christ in the Oratorio Delia Nunziatella at Foligno is gone. So have twelfth century frescoes in San Filippo Tivoli. Baroque frescoes in Chigi Palace, at San Quirico Doreia. arc in a lamentable condition.