A six-page document that sat in the Rosenbach Museum for a century made its way to Washington, D.C., on Thursday ahead of its long-awaited journey home to Peru.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken formally repatriated the stolen relic, a 1599 contract establishing the first theatrical company in the Americas, in a Washington, D.C., ceremony with Javier González-Olaechea, the foreign affairs minister for Peru. It will now return to the Peruvian national archives in Lima.
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"Thanks to very good work between our governments, we were able to return these documents to make sure that the extraordinary cultural heritage of Peru is further reinforced," Blinken said.
An FBI investigation revealed that the document was torn from a bound volume in the national archives of Peru. Little is known about the theft, but the pages were later purchased by A.S.W. Rosenbach, the founder and namesake of the Philadelphia rare book collection, in the 1920s. The Rosenbach Museum voluntarily relinquished the manuscript to the FBI in November.
The U.S. Attorney's Office also participated in the investigation, which began in 2017 at the request of the Peruvian government.
"It’s been an honor for our office to assist in the return of this centuries-old manuscript to the people of Peru," U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said in a statement. "The document represents a unique part of Peru’s history, and its repatriation reflects the Department of Justice’s ongoing commitment to protecting cultural heritage, not just in our own country, but around the world."
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