Moscow, the Hermitage wants the masterpieces lent to the Royal Palace and Gallerie d’Italia back from Milan
The director of the Hermitage: “The bridges of culture are blown up last”
Italian museums will not have to immediately return the paintings received on loan from Russia. A few days ago, the director of the Hermitage in Petersburg, Mikhail Piotrovsky, had sent on behalf of the Russian Ministry of Culture a letter in which he ordered theimmediate return of all worksan initiative that had seemed one of the many retaliations against Western sanctions for the war in Ukraine.
But now – he writes The messenger – thanks to mediation of the Italian section of the Hermitagewhich is based in Venice, the tones have cooled: the return must obviously take placeas always happens after a loan, but there is no rush anymore and times and ways will be agreed on a case-by-case basis. Yesterday morning Maurizio Cecconi, General Secretary of Ermitage Italia, took a train to Rome to give the news to the Italian Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini, and bring him a new letter from Piotrovsky.
“I’m very sorry – writes the director of the museum that houses the largest art collection in the world – that cultural relations between our countries have collapsed in such darkness. We can only get out of it if we keep the atmosphere of goodwill and benevolence. We always repeat that the bridges of culture blow up last. Now the time has come to protect them. And we will try to show how it is done. “It is not yet known, however, whether the rethinking concerns only Italy or also the other European countries which had been asked to return the works, namely France and the United Kingdom.