Luigi Palma di Cesnola

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Luigi Palma the Cesnola in a contemporary photo

Emanuele Pietro Paolo Maria Luigi Palma di Cesnola (born July 29, 1832 in Rivarolo Canavese , Piedmont ; † November 18, 1904 in New York ) was an Italian-American officer, consul, excavator or, depending on the point of view, robbery , collector of antiquities and first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art .

Life

Luigi Palma di Cesnola left school at the age of 15 and embarked on a military career. Between 1858 and 1860 he emigrated to America, where he participated as a soldier in the Civil War . He fought in the Battle of Aldie and was captured wounded. He later received the Medal of Honor for his bravery in this battle . In the spring of 1864 he was released from Libby Prison and took part in further fighting. By the end of the war he had achieved the rank of brigadier general. After the Civil War he was granted American citizenship and was still the American consul in Cyprus in 1865 , where he and his family settled for the next few years. His brother Alessandro Palma di Cesnola became vice consul. Encouraged by other European diplomats, he began digging for antiquity. The first activities in this area are documented for 1866. Palma di Cesnola quickly recognized the profit opportunities that this hobby brought with it.

In the following period he intensified these excavations, which made him and his brother the largest excavators in Cyprus within the next eleven years. Heinrich Schliemann was his recognized role model . During this time he excavated 16 ancient royal cities, 15 temples and 65 necropolises with a total of 60,932 graves without any scientific documentation of the recovered objects and without permission, thus building up an important collection of 35,573 individual objects, which encompassed all areas of ancient Cypriot art . In 1872 he began to take his collection abroad to sell to the major European museums. Unexpectedly, however, the Ottoman government of the island made him difficult and banned his collection from export. Only because Palma di Cesnola was also consul of the Russian Empire at the same time, he was able to carry out the objects. On a long trip through the metropolises of Europe, he offered his objects to the major museums there and sold objects to Athens, Berlin, Cambridge, London, Munich, Perugia and Turin. Since these individual sales were too expensive for him, he tried to sell the collection as a whole and obtained several offers worldwide. Surprisingly, the newly founded Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York made him the most lucrative offer, so he had the majority of his collection shipped to America. At the end of 1873 he returned to Cyprus, where he stayed until 1876. Then he returned to America for good. In his luggage there were 7,000 antiquities, which were bought again by the Metropolitan Museum. In 1879 the museum gave him the post of museum director, which he held until his death in 1904. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected him a member in 1881.

Palma di Cesnola in the rating of the professional world

Even during its lifetime, Palma di Cesnola was subject to sharp accusations from renowned archaeologists. He was accused of having only carried out his excavations for the money, so that scientific research was badly damaged. In order to be able to offer his customers the most intact objects possible, he had objects put together from several finds that were often not related. In addition, he falsified information on sites so that they can no longer be assigned today. In his pseudo-scientific publication, he put together a number of finds, which supposedly came from a site, but which represented a hodgepodge of stolen objects of various origins. In his History of American Archeology in Cyprus, Thomas W. Davis describes “ Cesnola's shameless looting of Cypriot antiquities ”, which today still affects the position of American archeology on the island.

literature

  • Calvin Tomkins: Merchants and Masterpieces. The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art . 2nd Edition. Henry Holt, New York 1989, pp. 49-92.
  • David A. Traill: Cesnola, Luigi Palma di . In: Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archeology . Volume 1. Greenwood Press, Westport (CT) 1996, pp. 267-268
  • Anna G. Marangou: The Consul Luigi Palma Di Cesnola 1832-1904: Life and Deeds . Cultural Center of the Popular Bank, Nicosia 2000, ISBN 9963-42-240-3 .
  • Sabine Rogge: Between enthusiasm for antiquities and commerce. Luigi Palma di Cesnola (1832–1904) - "excavator" in Cyprus and first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art . In: Ancient World . Volume 37, No. 6, 2006, pp. 84-86.
  • Roberto Damilano:  Palma di Cesnola, Luigi (Louis). In: Raffaele Romanelli (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 80:  Ottone I-Pansa. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thomas W. Davis: A History of American Archeology on Cyprus . In: The Biblical Archaeologist. Volume 52, No. 4, 1989, p. 164.
personal data
SURNAME Palma di Cesnola, Luigi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Palma di Cesnola, Emanuele Pietro Paolo Maria Luigi (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian-American officer, consul, excavator, collector of antiquities and first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1832
PLACE OF BIRTH Rivarolo Canavese , Piedmont
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1904
Place of death new York