NAPOLEON AS A THIEF

Evening Post, Issue 86, 11 April 1936, Page 21

NAPOLEON AS A THIEF

If hopes are realised a new chapter will soon be written in the long story of the pillaging of European cities by Napoleon, says an English paper. The Italian ship Artiglio, already famous for her recovery of the gold sunk with the Egypt, is said to have discovered the whereabouts of. a:sunken ship stored with the Emperor's loot which was sunk off the Isle of Elba on her way. from an Italian port to Marseilles. The divers believe they will be as successful in retrieving the bronzes and sculptures from the lost ship as they were with the Egypt's bullion.

It would need many ships and many crews to transport all the objects of art which Napoleoh . stole from conquered cities. "I will be a second Attila to you," he said, when Venice offended him; and an Attila he was to many a town, ravaging their cathedrals, churches, palaces, and museums of pictures and ivories, books and manuscripts, bronzes and marbles.

He made the Paris Louvre a vast gallery for the display of art trophies seized as the fruit of battles. He brought home from Venice the 'famous

bronze horses, made of Corinthian brass in the fourth century 8.C., takeb to Home, then to Constantinople, and from 1202 gracing the Cathedral of San Marco (where they are now. in place again).

Waterloo was a victory not only for England but for the rights of many European cities whose riches had been carried off by Napoleon's ruthless hand. No fewer than 2233 art treasures were taken from Paris and returned" to-the places.from which he stole them, and of that, number 2065 were picture^ which-all'; the'world still goes to see.

But hot all w.ere recovered; Pans still has many of the things he brought home with him—drawings,- Greek and Roman sculptures, and pictures which ■were thought not worth taking back. Among such the Louvre has Fra Angelico's beautiful "Coronation of the Madonna"; Albertinelli's "Madonna and the Infant Jesus"; Bronzino's "Christ and Mary Magdalene"; Cimbaue's "Madonna"; Giotto's "Francis of Assisi"; Gbzzoli's "Triumph of Thomas Aquinas"; Lippi's "Madonna and Child," and works of rare loveliness by Cred> and Mantegna.