Dario Del Bufalo

Dario del Bufalo (Rome, 30 January 1958) is an Italian mosaic and antiquity expert, architect, author, and restorer.

Education Del Bufalo graduated with Laude in 1987 with a PhD in architecture from Sapienza University in Rome.

Career From 1998 to 2007 he taught a course on the "History of architectural techniques and ancient materials" at the University of Lecce. He was President of the in Rome on the occasion of the sixth centenary of its foundation (2006).

Del Bufalo is author of many books and titles about Roman art and architecture, old coloured marbles and sculpture.

He is the author or co-author of numerous other volumes, including the museum catalogue for the 2021-2022 exhibition Il falso nell'arte. Alceo Dossena e la scultura italiana del Rinascimento (The false in art. Alceo Dossena and Italian Renaissance sculpture) at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto. He has written on the subject for The Art Newspaper.

Del Bufalo is also noted for having restored the in Rome.

Caligula mosaic Del Bufalo gained widespread coverage when he rediscovered an antiquity featured in his book, a marble mosaic that had been part of the flooring on one of the Roman Emperor Caligula's pleasure boats, the Nemi ships which were more like floating buildings than boats and never meant to sail. Following Caligula's assassination in AD 41 the boats were sunk on the orders of the Roman Senate and the Praetorian guard.

Lake Nemi (30 km (19 mi) south of Rome) was drained by Benito Mussolini in the 1920s and the ships became visible again. A museum was founded and built above the vessels. The museum and the ships were destroyed by fire during World War II. This particular piece which survived went missing in the 1960s. It fell into private hands and was eventually sold by an aristocratic Italian family to New York City antiques dealer Helen Fioratti and her husband Nereo. The piece, which served as the top of a coffee table in the Fioratti's apartment was seized by the New York County District Attorney's Office and then repatriated to Italy.