QUICK TAKES - June 9, 2009
Thousands of Italian artifacts -- including a handwritten document by Benito Mussolini and antiquities dating to 900 BC -- were found in the home of a late collectibles dealer, the FBI announced Monday in Chicago.
Nearly half the items were identified as stolen and will be returned to Italy, the FBI said.
The collection, worth between $5 million and $10 million, had been shipped to John Sisto during two decades by his father, who lived in Italy and likely bought the treasures from thieves who looted them from private collections, the FBI said.
Sisto’s relatives discovered some 3,500 artifacts, manuscripts and antiquities squirreled away in boxes in his Berwyn, Ill., home after his death in 2007.
The collection includes hundreds of Etruscan artifacts produced between 900 BC and 500 BC; parchments and manuscripts, some with wax papal seals dating to the 12th century; and more than 1,000 books and documents written by kings and popes.
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