Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano
said "they'll have to pass over my dead body" in commenting on a
reported demand from a German museum to return the famed ancient
Discobolus statue of a discus thrower.
"Thse who are asking for the return of the Lancelotti Discobolus
will have to pass over my dead body," said the minister after
Corriere della Sera reported that the Gliptoteca in Munich wants
to get back the 2nd century AD Roman marble copy of Myron's
ancient Greek original bronze.
"It was taken form Italy by Hitler," the minister noted.
The iconic work, kept in the National Roman Museum at Palazzo
Massimo near Rome's Termini rail station, was sold to Nazi
Germany in 1938 and returned to Italy in 1948.
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