Italy can see Caligula's ship mosaic again: stolen, it's back and now on display

Important restitution forItaly, with a very important work returning, reaching the Museum of Roman Ships in Nemi (Rome): in the halls of the Latium museum, in fact, the mosaic from Caligula’s ships that was illegally exported to America after the war is once again on view, and has been returned to Italy thanks to the action of the Carabinieri’s Comando Tutela Patrimonio Culturale. It is a marble inlay mosaic(opus sectile), with serpentine and porphyry, which was part of the rich decorations on the floors of the decks of the two ceremonial ships of Emperor Caligula. Coming from excavations conducted in 1895 by archaeologist Eliseo Borghi, it was restored with different materials and modern additions. The insertion in a modern frame, also present on the back, no longer allows the construction details to be grasped, but they can be reconstructed thanks to the other fragments preserved in the Museum.

After the war, as anticipated, the mosaic was illegally exported to the United States, and only in 2017 did the Carabinieri find it again, thanks to the collaboration of experts in the field: the fragment of the mosaic decoration of the deck of Caligula’s ship was in a private collection in New York, and the discovery in October 2017 allowed its seizure and return to Italy, in an operation under which the American authorities had also returned to Italy two red-figure vases from the 5th-4th centuries BC, coins, ancient books and manuscripts.

The presentation of the returned mosaic was held yesterday morning at the Museum of Roman Ships, with speeches by the Director General of Museums, Massimo Osanna, Major Paolo Salvatori (Archaeology Section Operational Department Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage), the mayor of Nemi, Alberto Bertucci, and the director of the Museum of Roman Ships in Nemi, Daniela De Angelis. And also since yesterday it has been possible to admire the mosaic in the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Roman Ships.

Italy can see Caligula's ship mosaic again: stolen, it's back and now on display

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