In cambio dei mosaici degli Atleti dalle Terme di Caracalla: la disputa tra la Camera Apostolica e Girolamo Egidio di Velo

The article examines some less known documentary aspects of the discovery of the mosaics ‘of the Athletes’ in the two exedra of the Baths of Caracalla in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Starting from the documents (most of them still unpublished) found in the State Archives in Rome and in the Bertoliana Library in Vicenza, the article focuses on the history of the archaeological objects kept in the storerooms of the Vatican Museums and in the Baths of Caracalla, which were given to the discoverer of the Athletes, Girolamo Egidio di Velo, as compensation for the mosaics. In this way it is possible to give a brief account of the history of the storerooms of the Vatican Museums.