MILAN, ITALY—According to an Associated Press report, U.S. officials handed over 200 looted antiquities recovered from American museums and galleries to Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture minister. Forty of the objects will be on display in New York at the Italian Consulate General for several months. Franceschini explained that the artifacts will be returned to the areas from which they were plundered and placed in local museums. “This too is a great homecoming operation that will add value to our extraordinary country as a vast museum,” he said. “They are artworks of absolute importance that will attract people to those places and territories.” To read about a chariot unearthed in a villa just north of Pompeii, go to "A Ride Through the Countryside."