It seemed yesterday that Sicilian firefighters had not completely extinguished a fire that broke out earlier this week at the home of an antiquities dealer (Palazzo Pignatelli in Castelvetrano on the western tip of the island), and it is reported to have flared up again. In fact, that seems not to be true. True or not, bad luck never strikes three times in the same place it seems, so any documents providing details of transactions carried out by Sicilian antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina that survived the fire will presumably be secured and available to investigators looking into collecting histories of items bought from him in the past. I'm off this morning to see if I can get a bottle of his olive oil as a souvenir.
A blog commenting on various aspects of the private collecting and trade in archaeological artefacts today and their effect on the archaeological record.
Thursday, 16 November 2017
House Fire in Sicily
It seemed yesterday that Sicilian firefighters had not completely extinguished a fire that broke out earlier this week at the home of an antiquities dealer (Palazzo Pignatelli in Castelvetrano on the western tip of the island), and it is reported to have flared up again. In fact, that seems not to be true. True or not, bad luck never strikes three times in the same place it seems, so any documents providing details of transactions carried out by Sicilian antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina that survived the fire will presumably be secured and available to investigators looking into collecting histories of items bought from him in the past. I'm off this morning to see if I can get a bottle of his olive oil as a souvenir.
Sad to say, but the oil is actually very very good (due to the species of olives).
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