Rodolfo Siviero
Encyclopedia
Rodolfo Siviero was an Italian secret agent, art historian and intellectual, most notable for his important work in recovering artworks stolen from Italy during the Second World War as part of the 'Nazi plunder
'.
, the son of Giovanni Siviero, a Venetian non commissioned officer in the Carabinieri
and commander of its local station, and his Sienese wife Caterina Bulgarini. He moved from the province of Pisa
to Florence
in 1924 and continued his studies in arts and letters at the University of Florence
, with the aim of becoming an art critic. In the 1930s he joined the Servizio Informazioni Militare, Italy's secret service, and became a Fascist
in the conviction that only a totalitarian regime could revolutionise and improve the country. In 1937, under the guise of a scholarship in art history, he set out for Berlin
to collect information on the Nazi regime there.
After the Badoglio Proclamation
on 8 September 1943 announcing the Allied-Italian armistice, Siviero sided with the anti-fascist front. His main work from then on would be monitoring the Nazi military body known as the Kunstschutz
which had originally been set up to protect cultural heritage during the war years but had under Nazi directives shifted to shipping a large number of artworks from Italy to Germany. From the Jewish art historian Giorgio Castelfranco's house on the Lungarno Serristori in Florence (now the Casa Siviero museum), Siviero also coordinated the Italian partisans' intelligence activities. In April to June 1944 he was imprisoned and tortured in Villa Triste on Florence's via Bolognese by the Fascist militias led by Mario Carità and known as the Banda Carità. Having resisted their interrogation, he was released thanks to the efforts of some Republican officials who were working undercover for the Allies.
Thanks to his reputation for resistance work, in 1946 Siviero was made 'minister plenipotentiary' by Alcide De Gasperi
, President of the Council of Ministers
. Siviero was appointed to that role to direct a diplomatic mission to the Allied military government of Germany to establish the principle of returning Italian artworks looted by the Germans. Siviero managed to get most of those looted works back to Italy and from the 1950s onwards worked for the Italian government systematically researching all artworks stolen and exported from Italy. This intensive activity gained him the nickname of "the 007
of art" and lasted until his death in 1983. During that period Siviero often denounced the lack of attention given by government institutions to recovering artworks. In the 1970s he also became president of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno
.
Rodolfo Siviero died in Florence
. In his will, he left his house and all its contents to the Regione Toscana
, which turned it into a museum dedicated to him eight years after his death. Since 1998, that museum has been managed by the Regione Toscana in collaboration with the "Amici dei Musei e dei Monumenti Fiorentini". Its first floor is open to the public, though the second floor (given in usufruct
by Siviero to his sister) is not yet ready.
Nazi plunder
Nazi plunder refers to art theft and other items stolen as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Third Reich by agents acting on behalf of the ruling Nazi Party of Germany. Plundering occurred from 1933 until the end of World War II, particularly by military...
'.
Life
He was born at GuardistalloGuardistallo
Guardistallo is a comune in the Province of Pisa in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 70 km southwest of Florence and about 50 km southeast of Pisa.-External links:*...
, the son of Giovanni Siviero, a Venetian non commissioned officer in the Carabinieri
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...
and commander of its local station, and his Sienese wife Caterina Bulgarini. He moved from the province of Pisa
Province of Pisa
The Province of Pisa is a province in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Pisa.It has an area of 2,448 km², and a total population of 394,101 . There are 39 comuni in the province ....
to Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
in 1924 and continued his studies in arts and letters at the University of Florence
University of Florence
The University of Florence is a higher study institute in Florence, central Italy. One of the largest and oldest universities in the country, it consists of 12 faculties...
, with the aim of becoming an art critic. In the 1930s he joined the Servizio Informazioni Militare, Italy's secret service, and became a Fascist
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
in the conviction that only a totalitarian regime could revolutionise and improve the country. In 1937, under the guise of a scholarship in art history, he set out for Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
to collect information on the Nazi regime there.
After the Badoglio Proclamation
Badoglio Proclamation
The Badoglio Proclamation was a speech read on Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche at 19:42 on 8 September 1943 by marshal Pietro Badoglio, Italian head of government, announcing that the Cassabile armistice between Italy and the Allies signed on 3 September had come into force. It...
on 8 September 1943 announcing the Allied-Italian armistice, Siviero sided with the anti-fascist front. His main work from then on would be monitoring the Nazi military body known as the Kunstschutz
Kunstschutz
Kunstschutz is the German term for the principal of preserving cultural heritage and artworks during armed conflict, especially during the First World War and Second World War, with the aim of protecting the enemy's art. It is associated with the image of the "art officer" or "art expert"...
which had originally been set up to protect cultural heritage during the war years but had under Nazi directives shifted to shipping a large number of artworks from Italy to Germany. From the Jewish art historian Giorgio Castelfranco's house on the Lungarno Serristori in Florence (now the Casa Siviero museum), Siviero also coordinated the Italian partisans' intelligence activities. In April to June 1944 he was imprisoned and tortured in Villa Triste on Florence's via Bolognese by the Fascist militias led by Mario Carità and known as the Banda Carità. Having resisted their interrogation, he was released thanks to the efforts of some Republican officials who were working undercover for the Allies.
Thanks to his reputation for resistance work, in 1946 Siviero was made 'minister plenipotentiary' by Alcide De Gasperi
Alcide De Gasperi
Alcide De Gasperi was an Italian statesman and politician and founder of the Christian Democratic Party. From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive coalition governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics...
, President of the Council of Ministers
Prime minister of Italy
The Prime Minister of Italy is the head of government of the Italian Republic...
. Siviero was appointed to that role to direct a diplomatic mission to the Allied military government of Germany to establish the principle of returning Italian artworks looted by the Germans. Siviero managed to get most of those looted works back to Italy and from the 1950s onwards worked for the Italian government systematically researching all artworks stolen and exported from Italy. This intensive activity gained him the nickname of "the 007
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
of art" and lasted until his death in 1983. During that period Siviero often denounced the lack of attention given by government institutions to recovering artworks. In the 1970s he also became president of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno
Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze
The Accademia di Belle Arti is an art academy in Florence, Italy and it is now the operative branch of the still existing Accademia delle Arti del Disegno that was the first academy of drawing in Europe.-History:The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno The Accademia di Belle Arti ("Academy of Fine...
.
Rodolfo Siviero died in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. In his will, he left his house and all its contents to the Regione Toscana
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, which turned it into a museum dedicated to him eight years after his death. Since 1998, that museum has been managed by the Regione Toscana in collaboration with the "Amici dei Musei e dei Monumenti Fiorentini". Its first floor is open to the public, though the second floor (given in usufruct
Usufruct
Usufruct is the legal right to use and derive profit or benefit from property that either belongs to another person or which is under common ownership, as long as the property is not damaged or destroyed...
by Siviero to his sister) is not yet ready.
List of works recovered or conserved
- The saving of the Annunciation of San Giovanni ValdarnoAnnunciation of San Giovanni ValdarnoThe Annunciation of San Giovanni Valdarno is a painting by Fra Angelico, painted in 1430 to 1432 in tempera on panel. It measures 195 cm by 158 cm. It was looted from Italy during the Second World War by the Germans and returned to the country via the work of Rodolfo Siviero...
by Beato Angelico (now in the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni ValdarnoSan Giovanni ValdarnoSan Giovanni Valdarno is a town and comune in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany, central Italy, located in the valley of the Arno River. It was originally called Castel S. Giovanni....
) was the most important act of restitution brought about by Siviero during the German occupation. In 1944 Siviero became aware that Hermann Goering had gained possession of some artworks and, with the aid of two monks in the convent of piazza Savonarola in Florence, managed to hide the Annunciazione of San Giovanni Valdarno from the German troops charged with removing it. - During the German occupation Siviero also saved paintings owned by De ChiricoGiorgio de ChiricoGiorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
taken under false pretences from his villa in FiesoleFiesoleFiesole is a town and comune of the province of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a famously scenic height above Florence, 8 km NE of that city...
, after De Chirico and his wife were forced to flee by German repression. All these paintings were hidden in a warehouse of the Soprintendenza. - On 3 July 1944 German soldiers brought over 200 paintings from the UffiziUffiziThe Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
to South TyrolSouth TyrolSouth Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...
. From 25 July to 11 August that year they evacuated sculptures from the Uffizi, the Museo dell'Opera del DuomoMuseo dell'Opera del Duomo (Florence)The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence, Italy is a museum containing many of the original works of art created for the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence. The museum is located just east of the Duomo, near its apse...
and other museums in Florence to South Tyrol, in the castle at Taufers CastleSand in TaufersSand in Taufers is a comune in South Tyrol in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 110 km northeast of the city of Trento and about 70 km northeast of the city of Bolzano, on the border with Austria....
. The information service under Siviero controlled these works' movements and were able to pass on this information to the Allies, leading to all these works' return to Florence in 1945. - In 1947 Siviero won the return of works taken from the art and archaeological museums in Naples by the Germans in 1943 and hidden in the Abbey of Monte Cassino, including the DanaeDanaë (Titian series)The Danaë series comprises at least five oil-on-canvas paintings by the Venetian master Titian, completed between 1553 and 1556. The works are based on the mythological princess Danaë. According to Ovid she was isolated in a bronze dungeon following a prophecy that her firstborn would eventually...
by TitianTitianTiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
(taken from the Museo di CapodimonteMuseo di CapodimonteThe National Museum of Capodimonte is located in the Palace of Capodimonte, a grand Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy. The museum is the prime repository of Neapolitan painting and decorative art, with several important works from other Italian schools of painting, and some important Ancient Roman...
and given to Goering as a birthday present in January 1944) and sculptures such as the Apollo from PompeiiPompeiiThe city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
and the Hermes by Lysippus. - On 16 November 1948 Siviero organised the return to Italy of the Lancellotti DiscobolusDiscobolusThe Discobolus of Myron is a famous Greek sculpture that was completed towards the end of the Severe period, circa 460-450 BC. The original Greek bronze is lost...
(copy of an ancient Greek original by MyronMyronMyron of Eleutherae working circa 480-440 BC, was an Athenian sculptor from the mid-5th century BC. He was born in Eleutherae on the borders of Boeotia and Attica. According to Pliny's Natural History, Ageladas of Argos was his teacher....
and property of prince Lancellotti), the Leda by TintorettoTintorettoTintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...
and the Equestrian Portrait of Giovanni Carlo Doria by RubensRubensRubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens , the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens (composer) Rubens is...
and 36 other works, all illegally exported to Germany from 1937 to 1943 with the complicity of the Italian fascist regime. - The Madonna con Bambino by MasaccioMasaccioMasaccio , born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense...
was recovered by Siviero for the first time in 1947 then again on 9 April 1973 and March 1971. - On 16 December 1953 in BonnBonnBonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
Siviero concluded an accord with Friedrich Jantz which allow Siviero to bring back to Italy all works looted by Germany during the Second World War. - In 1963 Siviero recovered the two paintings of The Labours of Hercules by Antonio del Pollaiolo from Los AngelesLos ÁngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. These had not been recovered among the cache hidden at Alto Adige, since German soldiers had hidden them then smuggled them to the USA. - Siviero also recovered works whose disappearances were not linked to the Second World War, including the mosaics of the MithraeumMithraeumA Mithraeum is a place of worship for the followers of the mystery religion of Mithraism.The Mithraeum was either an adapted natural cave or cavern or an artificial building imitating a cavern. Mithraea were dark and windowless, even if they were not actually in a subterranean space or in a natural...
of Junius BassusJunius BassusIunius Bassus signo Theotecnius was an ancient Roman politician. The son of the praetorian prefect Junius Annius Bassus, he was vir clarissimus and vicarius of Rome as well as praefectus urbi from 25 March to 25 August 359. The important Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus shows him to have been a...
and the SelinunteSelinunteSelinunte is an ancient Greek archaeological site on the south coast of Sicily, southern Italy, between the valleys of the rivers Belice and Modione in the province of Trapani. The archaeological site contains five temples centered on an acropolis...
Ephebe (the Ephebe having been stolen from the town council of Castelvetrano by a gang of robbers and after many travels ending up being found in FolignoFolignoFoligno is an ancient town of Italy in the province of Perugia in east central Umbria, on the Topino river where it leaves the Apennines and enters the wide plain of the Clitunno river system...
).
Monographs
Siviero, R. (1948) Sulle opere d'arte italiane recuperate in Germania, Roma, Accademia nazionale dei Lincei Siviero, R. (editor) (1954) Gli ori e le ambre del museo nazionale di Napoli, Firenze, Sansoni Siviero, R. (1960) Viaggio nella Russia di Krusciov, Firenze, Sansoni Siviero, R. (1976) La difesa delle opere d'arte: testimonianza su Bruno Becchi, Firenze, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (s.d.) Siviero, R. (1984) L'arte e il nazismo: esodo e ritrovo delle opere d'arte italiane, 1938-1963, Firenze, CantiniCuratorial catalogues
Siviero, R. (editor) (1950) Seconda Mostra Nazionale delle opere d'arte recuperate in Germania, Firenze, Sansoni Siviero, R. (editor) (1950) Second national exhibition of the works of art recovered in Germany, Firenze, Sansoni Siviero, R. (1964) Le statue dell'Universita inaugurate nel secondo centenario della restaurazione dell'Ateneo, 1764-1964, Sansoni, FirenzeExternal links
- http://www.museocasasiviero.it/ww4_siviero/home.page