Art: Crumbling Museum

Italy, from top to toe, is a vast museum containing some of the greatest monuments of Western civilization. But it is rapidly becoming one of the world's most ill-kept storehouses of classic art. ΒΆ In Venice, the parish priest of the 12th century church of San Felice, off the Grand Canal, was forced to stop in mid-Mass last spring as cracks suddenly opened across the church nave walls, showering the congregation with plaster. Near by, the floor of world-famed San Marco is sinking, Santo Stefano is developing its own leaning tower, scores of palazzos and villas are becoming increasingly strapiombati (out...

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