Italian Culture Undersecretary and art critic Vittorio Sgarbi has said that the discovery of the Riace Bronzes was “much more significant” than the recent find of 24 bronze statues showing hitherto unknown links between the Etruscan and Roman worlds at a Tuscan hot spa.
These statements were made on the 50th anniversary of the astonishing discovery of the two bronze warriors in Reggio Calabria this Thursday.
“The importance of the Riace Bronzes is incomparable, with respect to the artefacts found at San Casciano Bagni” said the highly respected critic and well-known political polemicist.
“Those discovered at San Casciano are certainly important works, but their value and quality are far less significant than the Riace Bronzes.
“The Tuscan discovery is certainly important, considering both the integrity of the finds and their quality. But they are discoveries that cannot be compared with what happened in Riace 50 years ago.
“The Riace Bronzes are among the highest works expressed by ancient civilization, while those at San Casciano Bagni are of median production, median quality and mostly cultural interest.
“What they establish on the anthropological level is the cultural nexus between the Etruscans and the Romans. In any case, I find it quite easy to say that there is no possibility of comparing the two discoveries.”
Sgarbi added:
“The primacy of the Riace Bronzes is in their very aesthetic nature, like Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, but it also depends on what we intend to do with them. Their persistent presence in Reggio Calabria makes Calabria a capital, and there is also a school of thought, according to which, they must stay here forever, without ever moving away.”
Sgarbi said he would discuss the possibility of moving the statues from Reggio so that they become a “world attraction” with Calabrian Governor Roberto Occhiuto, who on Wednesday said that they must become a bigger pull factor for Calabria from the rest of Italy.
Calabria has historically kept a tight grip on the much-loved statues since their discovery by a diver off the village of Riace in 1972.
The exceedingly rare bronzes stand two metres tall, and are an exceptionally realistic rendering of warriors or gods.
Both are naked, with silver lashes and teeth, copper red lips and nipples, and eyes made of ivory, limestone, and a glass and amber paste.
Regional authorities have allowed the famed bronzes to tour the country just once, in 1981, to sold-out venues in Rome, Venice, and Milan, a tour in which the statues were seen by over one million people overall.
A Sgarbi-led drive to send them to Dubai for the 2020 Expo world’s fair, which was held, due to the COVID pandemic, from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022, eventually failed.
The bronzes had spent four years stuck behind bureaucratic red tape, awaiting restoration, and were returned for public display at Reggio Calabria’s national archaeological museum in December 2013.
The two statues, which recently became candidates to become part of UNESCO’s heritage, have also become a symbol of Magna Grecia (Greater Greece), Calabria and the Mediterranean.
The recent find of the 24 bronze statues at San Casciano dei Bronzi has been likened by some to the Riace discovery.
“It’s the most important discovery since the Riace Bronzes and is certainly one of the most significant discoveries of bronzes ever made in the history of the ancient Mediterranean,” said the culture ministry’s director general of museums, Massimo Osanna.
The discovery’s inscriptions provided unprecedented evidence that the Etruscan language survived much longer than what has thus far been assumed, while ex-votos of body parts, and a never-before-seen ‘organ map’, showed that Etruscan knowledge in the medical field appeared to have been recognised and accepted in the Roman era too.
