DESPOILED BY NAZIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25660, 7 October 1944, Page 8

DESPOILED BY NAZIS

FLORENCE GALLERIES PRICELESS TREASURES TAKEN (Rec. 11.45 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 6. The Germans, under the pretext of removing them to greater safety, have taken between 450 and 500 priceless pictures and pieces of statuary which were formerly exhibited in the art galleries of Florence, says The Times Rome correspondent. Fifth Army experts have completed an inventory of the works of art which were removed from the galleries in Florence earlier in the war and stored j in castles and villas around the city. The list shows deplorable, gaps.- Half the missmg works of art. which are from the Uffizi, Pitti, and Bargello collections, consist of the finest masterpieces, including such treasures as Raphael’s “ Self Portrait.” Titian’s “Concert,’ .Van Dycks “ Charles the First,” Boticelli’s " Minerva and Centaur.” The- missing sculptures include “Venus de Medici.” the famous Hellenistic groups of “ Niobe and Her Daughters,” as well as Dontallo s * Saint George n and his “David” and Michael Angelo’s “Babchus.” ■■ The Uffizi Galleries’ famous, collection of cartoons, the most important of which were stored in a villa at Barberino, suffered irreparable s loss. The . Germans occupied ; the villa, threw the drawings into damp basement and corridors, where many were ground to pulp by the daily l traffic. Twenty-five of the cartoons, .including some by Tintoretto and Fra Bartolomeo, disappeared. One of.-the finest paleographic libraries in-the world, belonging. to. the•' ence. was ruined. A collection stored in the same villa as the cartoons was also -dumped in the- basement and trampled underfoot. • The Germans in some areas, under the pretext of demolitions being earned out, the Italians into shelters lest they were tempted to interfere with the despoiling of their treasures. When the Italians emerged the pictures were gone from the villas and castles. ■ • *. o German paratroops, at the depositaries south of Arno used one circu• r Ghirlandaio as a table and tabbed a knife through the canvas. , The Germans also raided six depositories north of the Arno, and when they -had not sufficient transport to take,.framed pictures they cut them roughly from the frames.