The Croatian newspapers are teeming with just-released photographs of Ivo Sanader’s multistory house in Zagreb. No such photographs have been available before, and there is thus much interest in them at present, during his protracted trial for all sorts of criminal activities. Most of the interest has to do with the paintings and pieces of sculpture the former prime minister has collected while in power. Estimates of their value dominate the accompanying articles. But I am stunned by the photographs for what they say about the erstwhile potentate and his family. They picked up a few valuable things, but they had no idea whatsoever what to do with them. The display of the artworks is abysmal. The furniture, the carpets, the lighting fixtures, and the like are sordid. The treatment of walls and floors is preposterous, not to mention the shockingly low ceilings. All in all, it is painfully obvious that the Sanaders are nothing but laughable parvenus. The fact that much on display has been acquired under suspicious circumstances is irrelevant in this context. No matter what they will ever lay their hands on, they will forever remain ludicrous upstarts. Leonardos or Michelangelos would not help one single bit. On the contrary, they would only add to the gloom. Poring through the photographs, though, I could not but feel a touch of pity for the embattled family. They are beyond redemption.