in
History
—
The Embezzler's Trove: How a Banker's Crime Scattered a Legendary Art Collection Across Europe
Giampietro Campana, a 19th-century bank director, used embezzled funds to build a colossal art collection. His crime led to his exile and the forced sale of his treasures, which now form the core of collections in the Louvre, the Hermitage, and other world-class museums.
In the grand halls of the Louvre in Paris or the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, millions of visitors admire priceless works of ancient and Renaissance art. Few, however, know the scandalous story behind many of these masterpieces—a tale of obsession, fraud, and a legacy built on stolen funds. This is the story of Giampietro Campana, the man whose passion for art was matched only by his willingness to break the law to fund it.
The Passionate Collector and Public Servant
By all outward appearances, Giampietro Campana was a pillar of 19th-century Roman society. Born in 1808, he followed his grandfather and father to become the director of the Monte di Pietà, the papal pawn-broking institution. It was a position of immense trust and public responsibility. But alongside his official duties, Campana nurtured a deep and all-consuming passion: collecting art and antiquities. He wasn't merely an accumulator; he was a dedicated archaeologist and connoisseur, personally overseeing excavations and meticulously curating his finds.
His collection became one of the most magnificent of the 19th century. It included over 600 Roman and Etruscan sculptures, thousands of Greek and Etruscan vases, an unparalleled collection of ancient jewelry (the Campana Jewels), and a formidable selection of Italian Renaissance paintings. He displayed these treasures in his sprawling home, the Villa Campana, which essentially functioned as a private museum, open to scholars and aristocrats from across Europe.
A Collection Built on a Lie
How did a public servant afford such a vast and expensive collection? The answer was simple and audacious: he stole. For years, Campana used his position at the Monte di Pietà to take massive, unsecured loans from the papal treasury. He leveraged public funds to finance his private obsession, embezzling a fortune to acquire artifacts that he believed were essential to preserving Italy's cultural heritage. His crime wasn't a single act but a systematic siphoning of money over a long period, all hidden behind his respectable facade.
The Fall and the Great Dispersal
In 1857, the scheme collapsed. Campana was arrested, and the staggering scale of his fraud was revealed. He was tried, convicted of embezzlement, and sentenced to 20 years in the galleys. The sentence was later commuted to exile by Pope Pius IX, but his life's work was lost to him forever. The Papal States seized the entire Campana collection, which was then valued at an immense sum.
Faced with their own financial difficulties, the Papal States made a decision that remains controversial: they sold it off. Instead of preserving this unparalleled collection as a national treasure in Rome, they auctioned it to the highest bidders. Tsar Alexander II of Russia acquired a massive portion for the Hermitage. Emperor Napoleon III of France purchased another huge lot, which now forms the core of the Louvre's Greek, Roman, and Etruscan collections. The South Kensington Museum in London (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) also acquired a significant number of items. In an instant, one of the world's greatest private collections was scattered across Europe, never to be reunited.
A Criminal's Complicated Legacy
Today, Giampietro Campana's story raises complex questions about ethics, art, and preservation. He was undeniably a criminal who abused public trust. Yet, his obsession saved thousands of artifacts from being lost or destroyed. This moral ambiguity is often debated.
The man was a criminal, but one has to wonder how many of these priceless objects would have been lost to time if not for his relentless collecting. It's a classic case of questionable means leading to a positive end, but the 'means' was public money, and the 'end' ultimately enriched foreign governments, not his own people.
Campana died in exile in 1880, a disgraced man. Yet, his legacy lives on, not under his own name, but in the display cases and galleries of the very museums that benefited from his downfall. His story is a powerful reminder that behind the serene beauty of a museum piece often lies a tumultuous and all-too-human history.