Vasari archive sale not yet certain

'ShortTit'Vasari archive sale not yet certain'/ShortTit' (ANSA) - Arezzo, October 23 - Plans by a private owner to sell the archives of Renaissance art chronicler Giorgio Vasari to Russian businessmen may not go through, judicial sources said Friday.

Rome prosecutors are looking into the sale of Vasari's sketches, notes and letters, including correspondence with Michelangelo and contemporary popes, to Russian firm Ross Engineering for 150 million euros.

Tuscany culture chief, Diana Toccafondi, who asked investigators to look into the matter, said the state recently financed a total restoration of the archives and has spent considerable resources ''protecting them'' from outside interests in the past.

The archive is owned by the descendants of the late Count Giovanni Festari, who allegedly negotiated the sale just days before his death.

Local officials say that the property was acknowledged as being Festari's rightful property after a series of complex and still vague legal procedures.

According to a 1994 culture ministry statute, the state has six months to match the offer before the sale becomes official.

The same statute says that while the archives can change hands, they have to stay in Vasari's historic home in the Tuscan city of Arezzo.

Guido Cosulicj, a lawyer representing the archive's owners, said the manager of Ross Engineering had ''no problem'' with leaving the archive where it is.

''They think it's a fair offer and are well aware that they won't be able to move it''.

''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, informing him the city had six 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 had taken the matter up during his visit to Russia this week to meet with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

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.

Italy is preparing to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Vasari's birth next year and an Italian daily said the sale would have ''major repercussions'' on the festivities. Photo: a sketch by Vasari