A priceless Roman mosaic that was once owned by Emperor Caligula spent 50 years as a coffee table in a New York City apartment.
- That's the word from Dario Del Bufalo, an expert on ancient stone and marble. He says he learned of the mosaic's location when he was signing copies of his book Porphyry -- which includes illustrations of the priceless moasic -- in a New York bookstore. "There was a lady with a young guy with a strange hat that came to the table," Del Bufalo says. "And he told her, ‘What a beautiful book. Oh, Helen, look, that’s your mosaic.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, that’s my mosaic.'"
- Although the woman's family purchased the mosaic from an Italian art dealer, it turned out to have been stolen during World War II -- so she was forced to give it up after it had been in her family for 50 years, Del Bufalo says. “I felt very sorry for her,” he says. "But I couldn’t do anything different, knowing that my museum in Nemi is missing the best part that went through the centuries, through the war, through a fire, and then through an Italian art dealer."
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