It will be an in-depth meeting the one organized by the municipality together with ValdarnoPost and scheduled for Aug. 1 at 9 p.m. at Circolo di Ponte agli Stolli. Protagonist: the bas-relief "Madonna and Child" by Benedetto Buglioni, a pupil of the Della Robbia workshop. It is a polychrome, glazed and enameled terracotta work, measuring about 2 meters high and more than 1.5 meters wide, which was stolen in the early 1900s from a tabernacle in Ponte agli Stolli (the Carabinieri's Cultural Heritage Protection Unit still lists the work in its database of illegally stolen cultural property) and is now kept at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio, United States.
The case has recently returned to the focus of local Italian and American media interest starting with several ValdarnoPost articles, published between May and June, recounting the theft, studies, and local and international interest around this affair.
In July 2020, for example, Buglioni's work was the subject of a parliamentary question submitted by nine senators and having as its first signatory Margherita Corrado, who will be present at the meeting in Ponte agli Stolli.
Together with her, the following will be present: the councillor for Culture, Dario Picchioni; Monica Campani and Glenda Venturini, respectively director and chief editor of ValdarnoPost, who will recount the in-depth journalistic work carried out on the affair, not only through interviews but also through consultation of the investigation records and court papers preserved in theState Archives of Florence.
They are, in addition, scheduled to be addressed by:
Giancarlo Gentilini, professor of History of Modern Art at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Perugia and author of microstudy number 26 of July 2012 titled "In Paris in a load of wine: robbiane thefts in the Valdarno," available in the library or digitally searchable from here: https://bit.ly/catalogoOpac ;
Victor Veronesi, an Art History expert who is particularly passionate about the affair.
Free admission.