NOTEZANO (Aquila, Abruzzo). Despite its modest dimensions, this elegant medieval limestone bas-relief has a very strong symbolic importance for the abrupt region. So much so that the Italian Ministry of Culture supports local communities in their efforts so that the Louvre museum restores it. It is indeed currently visible in room 160 of the Denon wing. This fragment of a linen decoration about 50 cm high and a little less than a meter and a half long comes from the main portal of the San Nicola church, in Aitzano in the province of Aquila. It was sculpted at the very beginning of the 13th century and adorned the disused religious building in 1874 then destroyed by an earthquake in 1915. As indicated by the sheet of the work available on the Louvre website, we find the trace of this bas-relief at the “Galerie Edgar Altounian, Paris, in 1935”. He would have “Presumably (summer) Acquired in the Parisian art trade during the occupation for the “Kunstgewerbemuseum” of Düsseldorf. Transferred to France by the 2e Düsseldorf convoy (n° German 1941-110). Allocated to national museums, department of sculptures of the Louvre museum (decree of August 13, 1951). Posed at the Cultural Center of the Sénanque Abbey from 1970 to 1983. Returned to the Louvre on December 21, 1983. ”
N’Andzano, “destroyed and pillaged city”
In 2019, Flavia de Sanctis, president of the Antiqua Cultural Associazione and Director of the Aitzano Museum Pole, denounces to the carabiniers the disappearance of this element that she judges “Representative of the historical memory of the city destroyed by the earthquake and pillaged”. Since then, she has been claiming her return. The Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli is sensitive to this request which had already been supported by his predecessor.
In February 2023, Gennaro Sangiuliano met the president-director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, to discuss the return to Italy of half a dozen works with the problematic origin in the museum’s collections. Surveys carried out by archaeologists had led to the identification of ancient vestiges acquired between 1982 and 1998 by the Parisian museum. These pieces are linked to merchants of Italian antiques Giacomo Medici and Giovanni Franco Becchina, convicted of illegal traffic of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities. The medieval Bas-relief of ASAZANO is one of these disputed works. “I consider that (Works) whose origin is doubtful are a stain in the collections of the Louvre. We must examine these cases with rigor and lucidity ”, had then declared Laurence des Cars. Words that had aroused hopes, hopes since disappointed. In 2024, Abruzzo Senators asked Alessandro Giuli that he revived the request for restitution while the case was brought before the Italian Parliament in February 2025. “This work has not yet been the subject of any request for restitution. Laurence des Cars is very attentive to questions from the collections and a very constructive dialogue is thus open with the Italian authorities on other requests ”.
