I came across an interesting report by Min Chen this week, published on the Artnet website.

Briefly, it stated: “Following an order from Pope Francis, the Vatican Museums has finalized an agreement with Greece to repatriate three Parthenon sculpture fragments from its collection.”

When I viewed the three images at the Vatican Museums website, they seemed familiar, and then I realised that the fragments are referenced in Giorgio Vasari’s fresco depicting the Battle of Marciano.

Could it be that the pieces arrived in Florence at some time during the 15th century as a gift for the Medici family and later placed in the sculpture garden of Lorenzo de’ Medici, so giving access to Vasari?

I’ll explain the connection in a future post.