Maria Thereza Alves

 
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Thieves and Murderers in Naples: A Brief History on Families, Colonization, Immense Wealth, Land Theft, Art and the Valle de Xico Community Museum in Mexico

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Thieves and Murderers in Naples: A Brief History on Families, Colonization, Immense Wealth, Land Theft, Art and the Valle de Xico Community Museum in Mexico, 2020

A Book and a Community Project

The book is about the wealth seized from Mexico and the community of Xico which was transferred to Naples when the fifth descendent of Hernan Cortes (the invader of Mexico) married into the Pignatelli family, a Neapolitan family in 1600. The book brings to the public the current plight of the Community Museum and the contemporary colonial ramifications as the new heir to Cortes’ title, Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca, works in an art gallery that is owned by a relative and is based in Madrid and Mexico City.
In the book, Alves writes that “Instead of requesting the Italian state sell the Villa Pignatelli and use the monies as a symbolic act of colonial reparation payments, I propose that two members of the Valle de Xico Community Museum be invited every year for a research and artist-in-residency grant of six weeks.”

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