The “funny mystery” deepens. Why the collection of amphorae and archaeological finds which the patron, scholar and art lover, Roberto Bilotti Ruggi of Aragon, would like to pay homage to the city would never have been proposed to the Municipality. In the sense that there would be no official document registered and addressed to the mayor Franz Caruso.
«Regarding the archaeological collection that Roberto Bilotti would like to donate to the Administration, it is important» he explains Antonietta Cozza (in the photo frame)delegate for Culture of the Municipality «specify that a donation proposal has never been formally sent to our institution and, therefore, without a formal request we certainly cannot evaluate the characteristics of the donation.
Furthermore, I want to underline” continues the delegated councilor “that the Director of the Museum has never refused this donation, unless it was made clear that the vocation of the Brettii and Enotri Museum is primarily to reconstruct the archaeological history of the city of Cosenza, with the acquisition – later successful – of the finds discovered since the 1980s in the historic center of the city, currently being set up. Moreover, in the past the city museum has also received donations of archaeological finds, among them Agostino De Santis, but they were contextualized and consistent with the history of the provincial territory. We are therefore waiting for the formal process and then we will be able to make all the artistic and cultural assessments for the correct valorisation of the Bilotti collection”.
Moral of the story: the hope of seeing the precious finds exhibited in our city can be cultivated. The Bilotti family has made very important donations of works to the Bruzio capital which today enrich the open-air museum in Corso Mazzini. The relationship between this family unit and the city of origin.
Roberto Bilotti's idea is now to deliver the enormous mass of finds to the Bruzio capital so that they can prove useful from an educational point of view. In fact, these are materials dating back to the third millennium BC. Not only that: the private collection also has amphorae dated to a period between the 6th and 6th centuries BC. There are Magna Graecia and Italic “pieces” (the latter attributable to the Apulians, the Siculi and the Campanians). The collection, enriched by purchases made at auctions throughout Europe, also consists of Etruscan and Phoenician finds. These two populations have come into contact with the Calabrian territories several times.
The Ministry of Culture has declared the collection – binding it – of “exceptional interest”. An interest that should now be reflected in our community (or at least we hope). This is certainly what Bilotti would like given what he declared to our newspaper. Perhaps, a banal phone call would be enough to start the virtuous mechanism and untie the knots of this… “funny mystery” (paraphrasing, once again, the great Dario Fo).
