ITALY’S CULTURAL HERITAGE FORCE RECOVERS 900 WORKS AFTER AMATRICE EARTHQUAKE

Italy’s Comando Tutela Patrimonio Culturale—a cultural heritage preservation squad known as the Blue Helmets for the color of its members’ headgear—has recovered nine hundred artworks, including altarpieces, mosaics, frescoes, and paintings, from the ruins of the museums, chapels, and other historic sites that were razed by an earthquake that struck central Italy in August, Caroline Elbaor reports for The Guardian.

The Blue Helmets was launched in February after Italy and UNESCO signed a landmark agreement to establish a task force to help protect heritage sites in conflict regions. The unit, comprising thirty historians, scholars, and restoration experts, and thirty members of the carabinieri art squad, was supposed to depart for the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra when it was reassigned to Amatrice and other Italian cities that were devastated by the 6.2 magnitude earthquake with more than two hundred aftershocks, which killed nearly three hundred people.

According to Fabrizio Parrulli, commander of the cultural heritage protection department, artifacts were taken to Rieti for restoration. “My men are trained for all crisis situations,” Parrulli said. “The people who have already lost everything, even in an earthquake, should not feel stripped of their memories, which often remain the only identifying elements of a community.”