Looting of the Biblioteca Girolamini (Naples)
"an arsonist in charge of a forest"--the "librarian" did it.
The Church and Convent of the Girolamini is a church and ecclesiastical complex in Naples, Italy. The Biblioteca Girolamini is the library associated with the church since the 16th century.
It was robbed of thousands of rare books
Book-lovers around the world helped investigators trace thousands of rare volumes looted from one of Italy's oldest libraries by a gang of thieves including the librarian, Marino Massimo de Caro. (note: he had no qualifications).1 He treated the library as his own personal collection — stealing and selling hundreds — maybe thousands — of rare and antiquarian books during his 11-month tenure.
Professor Tomaso Montanari alerted the police to what was happening:
"There were books spread around everywhere - on the floor, on the stairs, on tables. There was garbage - soda cans and papers - on the floor. It was total confusion, a situation of major decay. One of the library's members of staff took me aside, away from the CCTV cameras, and said: 'Professor, the director has been looting the library!'"
Montanari wrote an article for the Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper, arguing that having De Caro as librarian was like having an arsonist in charge of a forest.2
Who is De Caro?
A long article in The New Yorker by Nicholas Schmidle3 provides De Caro’s backstory. he studied law at the University of Siena but dropped out before getting a degree. He moved to Verona in 1998 and took a job as a communications director at a government pension office. He hung around a rare-book shop in his spare time. At a fair in Milan, he met an Argentine book dealer, and De Caro soon was spending about a week each month in Argentina at the Imago Mund— a gathering place for collectors. He met Cardinal Jorge Mejia, director of the Vatican Library (Mejia, an Argentine, lived in Italy). De Caro befriended Mejia who gave De Caro access to the Vatican Library's card catalogue.
On February 12, 2003, De Caro and Mejia made an unusual exchange. De Caro provided the library with sixteen incunabula books printed before 1501 and three fifteenth-century manuscripts, worth approximately a hundred thousand dollars. In return, De Caro received six books valued at more than a million dollars, including three Galileo titles that had been owned by relatives of Pope Urban VIII. The Vatican had other copies of the Galileo texts, and had been expanding its collection of incunabula. The Pope's secretary authorized the exchange, but a few people at the library found the trade misguided; one told me that he could find no logic to the transaction. In the spring of 2003, Mejia's subordinates intervened to halt a second exchange between the library and De Caro.4
De Caro did a lot of financial and political wheeling and dealing and eventually through contacts was put in change of the Biblioteca Girolamini. (The career of De Caro also includes forgery of a first edition of the "Sidereus Nuncius"by Galileo -also covered in Schmidle’s fascinating article)5.
Some Books Recovered; De Caro sentenced to 7 Years.
While some materials and books have been recovered, a number of invaluable 15th and 16th Century books are still missing.6
A book about the incunabula at the library was published in 2019.7
De Caro was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment and lifetime exclusion from public office following an expedited trial for the embezzlement of hundreds of volumes from the Girolamini Library.8
Even if you don’t understand Italian this video gives an idea of the investigation and trial. I have a translation (using Google translate) at this footnote.9
De Caro was a well-known figure in bookselling circles, he "had some kind of political cover that enabled him over the years to reach positions of responsibility in institutions more or less controlled by the Ministry for Culture.” He had no relevant academic qualifications.
Johnston, Alan. December 19, 2023. Naples' Girolamini: The looting of a 16th Century library. BBC News.
Schmidle, Nicholas. "A Very Rare Book." The New Yorker, vol. 89, no. 41, 16 Dec. 2013
Ibid.
Schmidle, Nicholas. "A Very Rare Book." The New Yorker, vol. 89, no. 41, 16 Dec. 2013, p. 62.
Johnston, Alan. December 19, 2013. “Naples' Girolamini: The looting of a 16th Century library.” BBC News
Gli incunaboli della Biblioteca Oratoriana dei Girolamini: un primo catalogo, a cura di Giancarlo Petrella, premessa di Andrea Mazzucchi, presentazione di Vito De Nicola, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2019.
International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. (March 17, 2013) THE GIROLAMINI THEFTS - MARINO MASSIMO DE CARO SENTENCED TO 7 YEARS IMPRISONMENT
Translation of video audio using Google translate: “The story of the looting of the Girolamini library in Naples in April 2012 went around the world. For how it became known, for the methods of the theft of the volumes and for the characters involved in the judicial investigation that resulted. The seizure lasted ten years, a long period which was mainly useful for investigators to understand the actual damage and how many books had actually been stolen by the organization set up by the then director at the time, Marino Massimo De Caro.
The investigation also involved the former Forza Italia senator, Marcello dell'Utri, who was brought into question by De Caro for the appropriation of 13 ancient volumes and then exonerated. The seals were placed in April 2012, as part of the aforementioned investigation opened into the theft of thousands of volumes reported by De Caro, who would be convicted years later for being one of those responsible.
In all six people who, with different roles, would have taken away at night, hidden and resold the books, around two thousand, only a part of which was found. The looting apparently occurred between June 2011 and April 2012 and also involved pieces of absolute rarity, subsequently identified in international auction houses and antiquarian bookshops in Germany and the United Kingdom. According to the Court of Auditors, which addressed the issue from the point of view of fiscal damage, what was carried out was "a total massacre", "the destruction of an incalculable heritage according to the accounting judiciary. Also frequented by Giambattista Vico, the library is open since 1586. Around 160 thousand volumes kept inside, including thousands of editions dating back to 1500.”