'Riace Bronzes will be at Expo 2015'

(ANSA) - Milan, August 27 - The famed ancient Greek warrior statues known as the Riace Bronzes, jealously guarded by the southern Italian region of Calabria, will be at Milan Expo 2015 despite long-stated local resistance, art critic, polemicist and Expo cultural envoy Vittorio Sgarbi said Wednesday.
    He said the coup was the result of "very fruitful talks" Wednesday with Calabria cultural pointman Mario Caligiuri". Sgarbi has been lobbying hard for the statues' transfer alongside Lombardy Governor Roberto Maroni.
    The bronzes spent four years stuck in bureaucratic red tape awaiting restoration and were returned for public display at Reggio Calabria's national archeological museum in December 2013.
    Calabria has historically kept a tight grip on the much-loved statues since their discovery by a diver in 1972.
    Regional authorities have allowed them to tour the country just once, in 1981, to sold-out venues in Rome, Venice, and Milan, a tour in which the statues were seen by over one million people overall.
    The 2,500-year-old exceedingly rare bronzes stand two metres tall, and are an exceptionally realistic rendering of warriors or gods.
    Both are naked, with silver lashes and teeth, copper red lips and nipples, and eyes made of ivory, limestone, and a glass and amber paste.