Italy should return horses

Re “Getty risks ‘embargo,’ Italy warns,” Nov. 11

If Italian officials are so intent on settling accounts with the J. Paul Getty Trust, they should return something that does not belong to Italy: the four great bronze horses that were stolen from the Hippodrome in Constantinople in 1204 in the sack of that city by the French and Venetians during the so-called Fourth Crusade. For the next eight centuries, they stood on a platform above the main door of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. According to John Julius Norwich, a number of years ago, they were moved to a room within the basilica, the reason being cited as atmospheric pollution. What people see now on that gallery are fiberglass imitations. Those horses and other artwork taken from Constantinople belong in Athens.

PHILIP MARLIN

Woodland Hills