VASARI ARCHIVE BUYERS 'HAPPY TO LEAVE THEM IN AREZZO'
VASARI ARCHIVE BUYERS 'HAPPY TO LEAVE THEM IN AREZZO'
(ANSA) - Arezzo, October 22 - A Russian holding company offering millions for the archives of Renaissance art chronicler Giorgio Vassari are willing to leave them in Tuscany, lawyers said Friday.
Representing the family of the archives' late owner, Guido Cosulicj said managers at Russian firm Ross Engineering, who have offered 150 million euros for Vasari's sketches, notes and letters, have ''no problem'' with a statute binding them to the 16th century artist's historic home in Arezzo.
''They think it's a fair offer and are well aware that they won't be able to move the archive''.
In 1994, the Italian culture ministry ruled that the documents, including correspondence with Michelangelo and contemporary popes, could change hands, but they had to stay in Arezzo.
''Who knows? Maybe they want to have an exhibition and open them up to the public?'' Cosulicj ventured.
But Arezzo mayor Giuseppe Fanfani said he wasn't convinced.
''It's hard to believe that anyone willing to pay 150 million euros would be content to leave the archives in Arezzo,'' Fanfani said Thursday.
The mayor said he received notification of the sale this week from Tuscany's historic archives department, which gave the city three months to match the offer.
Fanfani called the terms ''ridiculous'' and said ''there isn't a city in Italy that has that much money to spend''.
''It's up to the government and the culture ministry to make sure that treasures like these don't end up in foreign hands,'' said the mayor.
Fanfani appealed to Culture Minister Sandro Bondi and Premier Silvio Berlusconi to intervene, and said he'd written a letter to the Russian embassy in Rome asking it to block the sale.
The Arezzo mayor said he hoped Berlusconi, who was in Russia for former Russian president Vladimir Putin's birthday, would take the matter up.
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) is best known for his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, a series of biographies chronicling the lives and careers of Italy's Renaissance masters.
The work became a canon of western art history, overshadowing Vasari's work as a painter and architect.
A highly acclaimed mannerist painter in his time, Vasari also designed the famous loggia of the Palazzo degli Uffizi in Florence, one of the city's most celebrated landmarks. Photo: a sketch by Vasari
