Princeton University in antiquities pact with Italy

By Jon Hurdle

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Princeton University said on Friday it has reached agreement with the Italian government to return eight works of art whose ownership has been in dispute.

The artworks are among 15 antiquities in the collection of the university museum that have been subject to discussions between the New Jersey college and Italy's Ministry of Cultural Properties and Activities, Princeton said in a statement.

Princeton will transfer title to the eight objects but keep four of them on loan for four years. The works that will remain on loan include a Greek psykter and an Apulian loutrophoros -- both types of vases -- that, along with an Etruscan relief, were the subject of an Italian inquiry in 2004. The college will keep the other seven.

Italy also agreed to lend Princeton an unspecified number of works of art of "great significance and cultural importance," and to give its students "unprecedented access" to archeological sites managed by the Italian ministry.

The agreement represents the latest chapter in the Italian government's long-running efforts to recover antiquities that it claims have been illegally removed from the country, often by wealthy Americans, and which represent an essential part of its culture.

In February this year, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art returned 21 of its antiquities to Italy after a long-running dispute.

In September, Yale University said it would return to Peru thousands of artifacts removed by Hiram Bingham, the Yale-backed explorer who discovered Peru's mountain citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911.

The objects in the latest agreement include a Roman dagger, an Etruscan plaque and a Greek plate, and range in age from about 675 B.C. to the second century A.D.