Nemi to Germany, 'pay to burn ships of Caligula'

(by Domenico Palesse) (ANSA) - ROME, JULY 27 - Seventy-six years ago the retreated Nazis destroyed two Roman ships of the emperor Caligula and today the Municipality of Nemi, where the boats had been discovered, is asking for damages to Germany. And it does so officially, with a resolution signed by the mayor Alberto Bertucci. "That irreparable damage of an archaeological asset was not the result of an unpredictable war action - explains the first citizen - but a conscious gesture of scarring. For this we ask for compensation".
    The two imperial boats, which had been lying on the bottom of the Nemi needle for hundreds of years, were brought to light trail 1928 and 1932, after several attempts to recover through the lowering of the water level. Once they emerged, the ships were exhibited in the National Museum of Roman Ships, for which it was defined as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the time, with the interest of the international scientific and archaeological world. But on the night between May 31 and June 1, 1944, a fire devastated the museum. A commission ascertained the malicious origin of the stake, to be attributed to the retreating Nazi troops who destroyed the building voluntarily and not during a war action. (HANDLE).