The director of the Vatican's museums (pictured above) has warned Italy's cultural heritage is ''vanishing'' after prosecutors in Naples said two more people had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in a ''premeditated, organised and brutal'' sacking of the city's 16th century Girolamini Library, says a report by the Guardian in The Age.
Antonio Paolucci said he was ''saddened but not surprised'' by the devastating losses at the historic institution in Naples, where thousands of rare and antique books were last year found to have disappeared.
He said the alleged plundering was symptomatic of a country whose rich cultural heritage was at risk from various factors including theft and neglect.
''In the Italy of a thousand museums and libraries, our immense national heritage is vanishing … and the cultural fabric of the country is coming apart,'' Mr Paolucci, a former culture minister, told La Stampa.
He said a lack of protection for the country's treasures was having ''disastrous effects'' and was particularly harmful for small institutions that did not have the same level of security or prestige as large organisations such as the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Urging the state to take better care of its heritage, he said: ''Every looted painting or plundered library is a wound to civilisation which cannot be healed - a disaster for Italy and humanity as a whole.''
The allegations of theft on a grand scale from the Girolamini first surfaced last year, when a visiting art historian, Tomaso Montanari, found the institution in disarray, with precious volumes piled haphazardly beside soft-drink cans and other rubbish.
FULL STORY Vatican museums boss laments 'brutal sacking' of library (Age)