Posted March 25, 2005.

Panel Rules British Library Must Return Looted Italian Manuscript

An independent panel has ruled that the British Library must return a 12th-century manuscript that was taken from a cathedral northeast of Naples during World War II. The Spoliation Advisory Panel, formed by the British government in 2000 to assess claims over art in national collections that was allegedly plundered during the Nazi era, said that the city of Benevento had “made good their moral claim” for a “just and fair solution,” the London Times reported March 24.

The library bought the 290-folio missal from Sotheby’s in 1947, despite suspicions that it had been looted from the chapter library of Benevento after heavy American bombing in 1943. The auction house had obtained the missal from a former British Army officer.

The panel ruled that “the possibility that the missal had been looted was so manifest that its provenance should have been further investigated,” noting that the library’s deputy keeper of manuscripts had correctly recognized that the missal had come from Benevento.

The library had argued that the request to return the manuscript should have been made within the six-year limitation period after its 1947 acquisition. However, Jeremy Scott, principal in the litigation department at Withers, the law firm that advised the Archdiocese of Benevento pro bono, observed that “the British Library didn’t publish this acquisition until about 1952. Our evidence was that people in Benevento had no idea it was in the British Library.”

This will be the first time that a British national institution has returned an artwork looted during World War II. However, since the act of parliament under which the British Library was founded forbids the deaccession of items from the collection, a change in the law will be required.

Posted March 25, 2005.