Name: The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities-- From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums
Price: 50.91 NZD
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Author: Peter Watson
ISBN: 9781586484385

portada The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities-- From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums

The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities-- From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums

Type

Physical Book

Author

Peter Watson

Cecilia Todeschini

Publisher

PublicAffairs

Year

2007

Language

English

Pages

448

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

21.0 x 16.2 x 3.1 cm

Weight

0.39 kg.

ISBN

1586484389

ISBN13

9781586484385

Synopsis "The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities-- From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums "

The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli -- tomb raiders -- who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for the London Sunday Times and author of two previous expos's of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.

Peter Watson

(Author)

View Author's Page

Peter Watson nació en 1943, es historiador y periodista. Estudió en las universidades de Durham, Londres y Roma. Fue nombrado editor de New Society y formó parte durante cuatro años del grupo «Insight» de The Sunday Times. También ha sido corresponsal de The Times en Nueva York y ha escrito para The Observer, The New York Times, Punch y The Spectator. Es autor de trece libros, entre los que destacan Historia intelectual del siglo XX (Crítica, 2004), Ideas. Historia intelectual de la humanidad (Crítica, 2008), La gran divergencia (Crítica, 2012), La edad de la nada (Crítica, 2014) y Convergencias (Crítica, 2017); y ha presentado diversos programas de televisión sobre arte. Desde 1998 es asociado de investigación en el McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, en la Universidad de Cambridge.

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