With Law No. 134 of 16 July 2026 (published in the Official Gazette No. 173 of 28 July 2026), Italy fills a regulatory gap that has long been highlighted by museum-sector professionals. The new law introduced a comprehensive framework governing immunity from seizure for foreign artworks and other cultural properties temporarily loaned for exhibitions in Italy. The reform is likely to have an impact well beyond the procedural sphere, as it strengthens Italy’s international cre

The recent re-emergence of the so-called Florentine Diamond — announced at the end of 2025 after more than a century of uncertainty — has reopened one of the most fascinating unresolved disputes in European cultural heritage law. According to press reports first published by the New York Times in November 2025, the 137-carat yellow gemstone was found in a private vault in Canada, where it had been held by descendants of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty since the Second World War

Legal thoughts on the 'strappo' of 'The Migrant Child' in Venice The removal last year of a Banksy in Venice has reignited a longstanding legal debate at the intersection of property law and copyright: when street art is created without permission on someone else's wall, who actually owns it? And can the property owner legally remove it? In May 2019, during the inauguration of the Venice Biennale, a work attributed to Banksy appeared depicting a migrant child with its feet an

A controversial decision by the New York County Supreme Court (the trial level court) recently granted the New York County District...