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Giuseppe Fiorelli had written in an official report on the service he directed: the foreigners themselves, who contend with us for possession of our objects, need an official seal that only the Government authority can give, which is fundamental to assess the scientific value of those objects (Fiorelli, 1885).2 Accordingly, Fiorelli continues, foreign museums could increase the value of their collections only by buying objects which had been studied in Italy. In this way already well documented archaeological finds would not be exported abroad as ‘refugees’, but as
professors, archaeologists, ciceroni , and antiquarians. (Marinetti 1973 (English): 21f) Progress was given metaphorical expression by Walter Benjamin. A refugee at the time, Benjamin described progress as a disastrous storm from Paradise, a storm that creates ruins. In his final essay, “Über den Begriff der Geschichte” (“Theses on the Philosophy of History”), he commented on a picture by the artist Paul Klee called “Angelus Novus”: Der Engel der Geschichte muß so aussehen. Er hat das Antlitz der Vergangenheit zugewendet. Wo eine Kette von Begebenheiten vor