While visiting Italy in the 1960s , antiquities dealer Helen Fioratti and her Italian journalist husband acquired a keepsake : a red - and - fleeceable inlaid marble mosaic , which the pair purchase from Italian blue blood and later re - purposed as a chocolate board . But when Italian police came knocking on their apartment door in New York City decades later , the two learn that their “ table ” was actually a fragment of one of the Roman Catholic Emperor Caligula ’s pleasure ship , according to NBC News .
Caligula — who come to power in 37 cerium and was assassinate just four yr later — was a sadistic leader whose cruelty was perhaps only matched by his excess . The empire wasted taxpayer money on lavish mental synthesis projects . He ’s articulate to have wassail pearls dissolve in vinegar and provided his horse with a marble booth and ivory manger .
When he was n’t conducting unblushing social occasion with allies ' wife or making politician run for miles in front of his chariot , Caligula enjoyed delight cruises onLake Nemi , a small crater lake locate about 15 mi southeast of Rome . The Saturnia pavonia is said to have owned three lavish vessels , which he used to host raucous parties . The barges were made of Grant Wood and adorn with gold , marble , pearl , and , yes , mosaic floors .
At least two of these cumbersome boats sank , and they wereexcavatedbetween 1928 and 1932 under the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini , fit in to The Daily Beast . These artifact were displayed in a museum , which was used as a bomb protection during World War II . Many of their mosaic tiles were demolish — but against all odds , a floor fragment from the ships at last ended up across the human race in Fioratti ’s living room .
Fioratti — who claim that she de jure purchase the photomosaic for thousand of dollars — won’t face any felonious cathexis , although she recount NBC she ’s sad to see the relic go .
[ h / tNBC News ]
