Italy begins to reckon with Fascist-era colonial collections kansas.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kansas.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Italy is starting to come to terms with its Fascist-era colonial past and the loot it has in its museums. It's something of a turnabout given that Italy has long been considered a victim of looting. It has spent decades trying to recover ancient Etruscan vases and Roman statutes that ended up in museums around the globe. But for over a year, a team of museum directors, university researchers and scholars have been conducting a “census” of the collections in the 498 Italian state museums to get a handle on whether they contain any stolen loot from Italy's colonial empire.
Like other European nations, Italy established a colonial empire in North Africa during a specific period. As a result, it accumulated artifacts from that.