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Roman Emperor Caligula’s coffee table
When stains had to be cleaned from a mosaic that once decorated a lavish pleasure vessel from the first century, they were not remnants from the debauched revelries that the murderous and sex-crazed Roman Emperor Caligula used to hold on the ship.
Instead, they were vestiges of modern, everyday life from a New York City apartment almost 2,000 years later. But exactly how the mosaic ended up as a coffee table in a Park Avenue living room is still something of a mystery.
The mosaic is a four-and-a-half square-foot geometric piece made up of rich green and white marble and purple-red porphyry, a type of rock textured with crystals that was frequently the choice of Roman emperors. It had been part of an inlaid floor in one of the gigantic and extravagant party ships commissioned by the emperor Caligula, a much-despised ruler whom history has described as cruel, depraved — and maybe even a little deranged.
When Caligula was assassinated in A.D. 41 after ruling for only four years, his two ships were sunk where they sat, in the middle of Lake Nemi, a small volcanic lake southeast of Rome.
Over the ensuing centuries, several attempts had been made to raise the opulent ships from the lake. Italian Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti first attempted to salvage remnants in the mid-15th century but was ultimately unsuccessful. Then in 1895, divers conducted a thorough survey of the site and began resurfacing relics from the lake’s mud floor. That is when archaeologists unearthed certain colorful stone mosaic tile.
“The deck must have been a marvelous sight to behold, and it goes beyond the power of imagination for its strength and elegance…” Italian archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani wrote of the discovery in an issue of The Youth’s Companion, according to an 1898 article in The New York Times. “Last of all comes the pavement trodden by imperial feet, made of disks of porphyry and serpentine, not thicker than a silver dollar, framed in in segments and lines of enamel, white and gold, white and red, or white, red, and green. The colors are perfectly brilliant. Fancy the deck of a modern yacht inlayed in enamel.”
Stretching 230 feet and 240 feet long and mostly flat, the wood ships were clearly constructed as barges meant to sit in placid water, not to negotiate waves. According to The New York Times in 1908, the ships were topped with silk sails and featured orchards, vineyards, and even bathrooms with running water (“quite unnecessary when one can so easily jump overboard,” the Times offered). To be certain whose ship bore such luxurious accommodations, the lead pipes were inscribed Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Caligula’s official name, according to a 1906 issue of Scientific American.
It would not be until the twentieth century that the ships’ full grandeur was revealed. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was so taken by Caligula — whose legend includes turning his palace into a brothel and appointing his horse as a high-ranking senator — that he ordered Lake Nemi be partially drained so the two ships could be raised. In the early 1930s, Mussolini commissioned a museum next to the lake to house the ships and their treasures once they were recovered.
But after sitting submerged for nearly 1,900 years, Caligula’s floating dens of debauchery would not see dry land for long. During World War II, Nazis used the museum as a bomb shelter, and the Italians of Nemi allege the retreating Germans set fire to the building in 1944, destroying most objects inside.
Destined to hold idling beverages on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the colorful mosaic floor tile bears no evidence of this fire damage. Dario Del Bufalo, an Italian expert on ancient marble and stone, told 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper this suggests the mosaic had either been snuck out of the museum before the fire or had been in private hands since Mussolini had it extracted from the lake in the 1930s.
At some point after World War II, the mosaic disappeared. Del Bufalo included a photo of it in a book on porphyry he published in 2013, and during a lecture and book signing at the Bulgari jewelry store on Manhattan’s 5th Avenue, he overheard a remarkable conversation.
“There was a lady with a young guy with a strange hat that came to the table,” Del Bufalo said. “And he told her, ‘What a beautiful book. Oh, Helen, look, that’s your mosaic.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, that’s my mosaic.'”
Shocked by the statement as much for its substance as its nonchalance, Del Bufalo quickly wrapped up signing books and sought out the pair. He found the young man who told him that yes, this is Helen’s coffee table at her home on Park Avenue.
The Helen in question is Helen Fioratti, an art dealer who owns a gallery for European antiques and lives in Manhattan. She told The New York Times in 2017 that she and her husband, Nereo Fioratti, a journalist, had bought the piece in good faith from an Italian noble family in the 1960s and had no reason to suspect they were not the mosaic’s rightful owners. Once the Fiorattis brought the mosaic home to their Park Avenue apartment, they affixed it to a base to turn it into coffee table.
“It was an innocent purchase,” Fioratti told the Times in 2017. “It was our favorite thing, and we had it for 45 years.”
But prosecutors for the Manhattan district attorney’s office say evidence suggests the mosaic had been stolen from the Nemi museum, also according to The New York Times. In September 2017, they seized the mosaic and returned it to the Italian government.
60 Minutes’ request for comment from Fioratti went unreturned.
Del Bufalo told 60 Minutes he sympathizes with Fioratti. “I felt very sorry for her, but I couldn’t do anything different, knowing that my museum in Nemi is missing the best part that went through the centuries, through the war, through a fire, and then through an Italian art dealer, and finally could go back to the museum,” he said. “That’s the only thing I felt I should have done.”
After receiving a thorough cleaning to remove all traces of its former life as host to coffee, tea, and the occasional flower vase, the mosaic was unveiled on display at Nemi’s Museum of the Roman Ships in 2021.
In the meantime, Del Bufalo, had fashioned a convincing replica of the mosaic. He told 60 Minutes he wants to make a copy for Fioratti to return to her apartment on Park Avenue, because as he explained, “I think my soul would feel a little better.”
The video above was originally published on Nov. 21, 2021 and was produced by Andy Court, Brit McCandless Farmer, and Will Croxton. It was edited by Will Croxton.
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World falling “miles short’ of emissions goals to curb climate change, U.N. says, sounding the alarm
Paris — Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached record highs in 2023, the United Nations warned on Monday, saying countries are falling “miles short” of what’s needed to curb devastating global warming.
Levels of the three main greenhouse gases — heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — all increased yet again last year, said the World Meteorological Organization, the U.N.’s weather and climate agency.
Carbon dioxide was accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever, up more than 10 percent in two decades, it added.
And a separate U.N. report found that barely a dent is being made in the 43 percent emissions cut needed by 2030 to avert the worst of global warming.
Action as it stands would only lead to a 2.6 percent reduction this decade from 2019 levels.
“The report’s findings are stark but not surprising — current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country,” said U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell.
The two reports come just weeks before the United Nations COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan and as nations prepare to submit updated national climate plans in early 2025.
“Bolder” plans to slash the pollution that drives warming will now have to be drawn up, Stiell said, calling for the end of “the era of inadequacy.”
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries said they would cap global warming at “well below” two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 — and 1.5C if possible.
But so far, their actions have failed to meet that challenge.
Existing national commitments would see 51.5 billion tons of CO2 and its equivalent in other greenhouse gases emitted in 2030 — levels that would “guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception,” Stiell said.
As long as emissions continue, greenhouse gases will keep accumulating in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, WMO said.
Last year, global temperatures on land and sea were the highest in records dating as far back as 1850, it added.
WMO chief Celeste Saulo said the world was “clearly off track” to meet the Paris Agreement goal, adding that record greenhouse gas concentrations “should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers.”
“CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time during human existence,” the report said, adding that the current atmospheric CO2 level was 51 percent above that of the pre-industrial era.
The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago, when the temperature was two to three degrees Centigrade warmer and the sea level was 65 feet higher than now, it said.
Given how long CO2 lasts in the atmosphere, current temperature levels will continue for decades, even if emissions rapidly shrink to net zero.
In 2023, CO2 concentrations were at 420 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1,934 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide at 336 parts per billion.
CO2 accounts for about 64 percent of the warming effect on the climate.
Its annual increase of 2.3 ppm marked the 12th consecutive year with an increase greater than two ppm — a streak caused by “historically large fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the 2010s and 2020s,” the report said.
Just under half of CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, while the rest are absorbed by the ocean and land ecosystems.
Climate change itself could soon “cause ecosystems to become larger sources of greenhouse gases,” WMO deputy chief Ko Barret warned.
“Wildfires could release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, whilst the warmer ocean might absorb less CO2. Consequently, more CO2 could stay in the atmosphere to accelerate global warming.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed Monday to stay in office despite his gamble of snap elections backfiring, with his party’s ruling coalition falling short of a majority for the first time since 2009.
Ishiba called Sunday’s election days after taking office on October 1, but voters angry at a slush fund scandal punished his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed Japan almost non-stop since 1955.
Ishiba, 67, insisted on Monday he was staying put, saying he would not allow a “political vacuum” in the world’s fourth-biggest economy.
He said the biggest election factor was “people’s suspicion, mistrust and anger” after the party scandal, which helped sink his predecessor, Fumio Kishida.
“I will enact fundamental reform regarding the issue of money and politics,” Ishiba told reporters.
The yen hit a three-month low, sliding more than one percent against the dollar.
According to projections by national broadcaster NHK and other media, the LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito missed Ishiba’s stated goal of winning 233 seats – a majority in the 456-member lower house.
The LDP won 191 seats, down from 259 at the last election in 2021, according to NHK’s tallies. Official results were yet to be published.
“As long as our own lives don’t improve, I think everyone has given up on the idea that we can expect anything from politicians,” restaurant worker Masakazu Ikeuchi, 44, told AFP on Monday in rainy Tokyo.
On Monday, the LDP’s election committee chief, former premier Junichiro Koizumi’s son Shinjiro Koizumi, resigned to “take responsibility” for the outcome.
The most likely next step is Ishiba seeking to head a minority government, with the divided opposition probably incapable of forming a coalition of their own, analysts said.
Ishiba, who has 30 days to form a government, said Monday he was not considering a broader coalition “at this point.”
A minority government would likely slow down the parliamentary process as Japan confronts a host of challenges from a falling population to a tense regional security environment.
It could also push figures within the LDP to try to unseat Ishiba.
“Lawmakers aligned with (former prime minister Shinzo) Abe were cold-shouldered under Ishiba, so they could potentially pounce on the opportunity to take their revenge,” Yu Uchiyama, a political science professor at the University of Tokyo, told AFP.
“But at the same time, with the number of LDP seats reduced so much, they might take the high road and support Ishiba for now, thinking it’s not the time for infighting,” he said.
A big winner was former premier Yoshihiko Noda’s opposition Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), which increased its projected seat tally to 148 from 96 at the last election.
Noda in the campaign pounced on media reports that the LDP was financially supporting district offices headed by figures caught up in the slush fund scandal.
“Voters chose which party would be the best fit to push for political reforms,” Noda said late Sunday, adding that the “LDP-Komeito administration cannot continue”.
Mirroring elections elsewhere, fringe parties did well, with Reiwa Shinsengumi, founded by a former actor, tripling its seats to nine after promising to abolish the sales tax and boost pensions.
The anti-immigration and traditionalist Conservative Party of Japan, established in 2023 by nationalist writer Naoki Hyakuta, won its first three seats.
The number of women lawmakers, meanwhile, reached a record high of 73, according to NHK, but they still make up less than 16 percent of the legislature.
“I think the outcome was a result of people across Japan wanting to change the current situation,” said voter Takako Sasaki, 44.
Ishiba said before the election that he was planning a new stimulus packaging to ease the pain of rising prices, another contributor to Kishida’s unpopularity.
Another big area of spending is the military, with Kishida having pledged to double defense spending and boost U.S. military ties as a counter to China.
Ishiba has backed the creation of a regional military alliance along the lines of NATO to counter China, although he has cautioned it would “not happen overnight”.
China’s foreign ministry said Monday it wanted a “constructive and stable China-Japan relationship that meets the requirements of the new era”.
