Oggi

New Italian Ambassador to U.S. Assumes Post

For the first time in history, Italy has named a woman— Mariangela Zappia—as Italy’s Ambassador to the United States. Ambassador Zappia has worked in foreign service since 1983, holding key posts at various places, including Dakar, Senegal; Brussels, Belgium; and the United States, where she served as the Consulate General in New York from 1990 to 1993.

She has served as the Head of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Balkans Department for Development Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome; Ministry Plenipotentiary at the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva; and the Head of the European Union Delegation to the United Nations. She also became the first woman to serve as Permanent Representative of Italy to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

For her service, Italy has awarded her several honors, including “Ufficiale dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana” and “Commendatore.” A graduate of the University of Florence, studying political science and international relations before earning a post-graduate degree in diplomatic and international relations, Ambassador Zappia actively champions gender equality and women representation in all fields.

Ambassador Zappia begins her assignment this July, assuming the post from Ambassador Armando Varricchio, who served as Italy’s Ambassador to the U.S. since 2016.

Off-Duty Officers Find Stolen 1st Century Roman Statue in Belgium

Earlier this year, Italian police officers stationed in Brussels, Belgium, were visiting antique shops after work and happened upon a marble statue that caught their eye. The statue, which features a life-sized headless body wearing a toga, bore the usual signs of damage caused by excavation tools. The officers, who were on a separate assignment by The Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (Carabinieri TPC), then checked their photographs against a database of stolen artifacts once they returned to Italy. Their suspicions turned out to be justified when they confirmed that the statute—aptly named Togatus—had been stolen from the Villa Marini Dettina archaeological site outside of Rome in November 2011. The statue is valued at around $120,000. After the statue was repatriated to Italy, an investigation revealed that an Italian trader had been trafficking artifacts under a Spanish pseudonym. The culprit has been referred to Italian prosecutors. The Carabinieri TPC is the branch of the Italian police responsible for handling art and antiquities crimes. Founded in 1969, it was the first special police force in this sector. It has four departments: archaeology, antique dealing, fakes, and contemporary art. In 2009, the Carabinieri TPC recovered about 60,000 stolen works worth about (Italian Cultural Ministry) $200 million.