Vernon at the tomb
The New York Times’ Michael Kimmelman has published a terrific feature on “The Lost Chalice” and the road trip we took the other day to the overgrown Etruscan countryside. First we tromped around the long-sought site of the clandestine dig that four decades ago uncovered some of the world’s finest ancient art. Then I introduced him to a key character from “The Lost Chalice,” the last known surviving member of the tomb-robbing team that unearthed the haul. And on the way back into Rome we stopped to see the biggest prize from the illicit excavation—the Euphronios krater— itself in a new context at the Villa Giulia museum, far from its former home in New York’s Met. Stolen Beauty: A Greek Urn’s Underworld