Rescuing Da Vinci

Rescuing Da Vinci

Rescuing Da Vinci Cover Jacket
Author	Robert M. Edsel
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Art, photographic, history
Genre	Non-Fiction
Publisher	Laurel publishing, LLC
Publication date	2006
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	304 pp.
ISBN
OCLC	144222153

Rescuing Da Vinci is a largely photographic, historical book about art reclamation and preservation during and after World War II, written by American author Robert M. Edsel, published in 2006 by Laurel Publishing.

This book focuses on an aspect of World War II that is largely ignored in many history books – the Nazi looting of Europe and Russia and the Allied recovery and repatriation of stolen art. Little known to the general public, Hitler diverted his attention from the prosecution of the war to the systematic theft of Europe’s great art. His dream was to build the world’s greatest collection – The Führermuseum – in his hometown of Linz, Austria. European museum officials took extraordinary measures to protect art from Hitler and the ensuing war. When U.S. forces prepared to enter Europe, they assembled a special force of largely American and British museum directors, curators, and art historians known as the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (MFAA) section, attached to the Allied armies.

These “Monuments Men” attempted to minimize damage to European monuments and architecture, and to track down stolen works of art. Their effort would become one of the greatest “treasure hunts” in history. In the end, Allied forces located more than 1,000 repositories in mines and castles across Europe, many of which were filled with art, sculpture, furniture, archives, and other cultural property stolen by the Nazis. Edsel notes that thousands of pieces are still missing, such as Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man from the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, Poland.