Arturo Palma di Cesnola

In 2004 Arturo Palma di Cesnola disclosed that his family still kept Cypriot antiquities collected by his grandfather, Alessandro Palma di Cesnola. A professor of Palaeolithic archaeology at the University of Siena, he was the son of Alerino (born 1882), Alessandro's only son¹.

The occasion was a workshop in Turin held with an exhibition marking the centenary of Luigi Palma di Cesnola. There Arturo presented a paper, "The shadow of Luigi: his brother Alessandro", and said in public for the first time that the collection remained with the family. He wished to leave it to the Museo di Antichità, as the family had done with part of it earlier¹.

The donation was formalised on 29 November 2005 in a Superintendence document (Rep. 828), which confirmed State ownership of 357 objects. They comprised 111 pieces of glass, 87 ceramics and 23 lamps, with coroplastic art, jewellery, coins, and obsidian tools and cores. Maria Cristina Preacco of the Superintendence was involved. Some of the glass had been published in 1998 as coming from a private collection¹. Nine lead seals that Alessandro had bought stayed with his descendants until 2006, when Arturo gave them to the museum as well^1,2. The objects are catalogued in Turin as the Alessandro Palma di Cesnola collection, Arturo Palma di Cesnola donation 2005.