The director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will meet with top Italian cultural officials in Rome next week in an effort to finalize an accord that would return several prized antiquities to Italy.

The meeting comes after the museum agreed earlier this month to relinquish 20 pieces in its collection that Italian officials had long claimed were stolen from the country. The pieces, considered among the Met’s most valuable antiquities, include the Euphronios krater, a 2,500-year-old Greek vase, and a 15-piece set of Hellenistic silver.

The Met’s consent to return the pieces resolved the major point of dispute between Italy and the museum, but both sides said yesterday that there are details to be worked out. The ministry and the museum have exchanged three official proposals in the last month after the Met director, Philippe de Montebello, first discussed the issue in Rome with the Italian culture minister, Rocco Buttiglione, in November. Italy sent the latest proposal within the last week, a spokesman for the Met, Harold Holzer, said.

The proposed agreement centers on the Met returning the disputed objects in exchange for future long-term loans from Italy’s collection of antiquities.

Mr. Montebello will meet with Italian officials on Monday and “if all goes well” a signing ceremony will be held on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Culture Ministry said. Regardless of the outcome of Monday’s meeting, none of the disputed pieces will change hands next week. A timetable for their return has yet to be determined, but in the case of the Euphronios krater, Mr. Holzer said the museum wants to keep the vase on display at least through the much-anticipated opening of a new Roman court in spring 2007.

Mr. Holzer and ministry officials were reluctant to discuss the specifics of unresolved issues in the deal, not wanting to jeopardize a possible agreement in advance of next week’s meeting. Among the topics that may be discussed on Monday, however, is a timetable for returning the pieces to Italy and a “wish list” the Met has submitted for long-term loans from Italy.

The Italians also reportedly want to be able to review the provenance of an tiquities on loan to the Met, with an eye toward the collection of a prominent philanthropist and Met trustee, Shelby White. Ms. White and her late husband, Leon Levy, gave $20 million to the Roman gallery set to open next year, but several antiquities from their collection on display at the Met have been questioned by Italian investigators.

Many cultural scholars have hailed the Met’s decision to return the disputed pieces, especially the Euphronios krater, which has been the subject of controversy since the museum purchased it in 1971. Others, however, are lamenting the move, saying it will prevent people from seeing one of the finest examples of Greek art.

An art collector after whom a Greek sculpture gallery at the Met is named, Michael Steinhardt, said it was “a sad day for those who care about art and its exposure to the broadest groups of mankind.” Mr. Steinhardt, one of the owners of The New York Sun, disputed Italy’s claim of ownership of the objects. “They don’t belong to Italy,” he said. “The Euphronios krater was probably made in Greece by a culture foreign to contemporary Italy.”