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Three days after Italy’s monarchy was voted to be abolished in June 1946, more than 6,700 diamonds and 2,000 pearl-encrusted gems were surreptitiously deposited in a safe deposit box in Rome’s Bank of Italy headquarters.

The treasure trove, worth approximately €300 million in today's currency, belonging to the House of Savoy, was among the only valuables not confiscated when King Umberto II and his heirs were dethroned and banished into exile after World War II. But a civil