ARTINFO – A selection of 16 Hellenistic silver-gilt items has made its way back to Aidone, Sicily, where a grateful local population viewed it Friday in the town’s archaeological museum. The Metropolitan Museum of Art had held the pieces for almost 30 years, but efforts by scholars and the Italian government to persuade the museum that they had been illegally excavated from the ancient Greek and Roman site of Morgantina — located just outside the Lombard town — finally paid off. The items were returned to Italy in February following a 2006 agreement between the New York institution and the Italian government, but only now have they found their way back to tiny Sicilian town’s modest museum.

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