Four Renaissance paintings of significant artistic and cultural value were stolen Saturday night from the Regional Interdisciplinary Museum of Messina in Sicily. The theft occurred during the city's annual religious festival, the Procession of the Vara, which draws an estimated 100,000 people, providing cover for the thieves.
The stolen works include three panels from the Polyptych of San Gregorio, painted in 1473, and a double-sided panel featuring the Madonna with Child on one side and Christ in Pietà on the other. These wood panels are attributed to Antonello da Messina, a renowned 15th-century painter from Sicily.
The museum's director, Marisa Mercurio, described the loss as "extremely serious and significant," emphasizing the works' "enormous cultural, artistic and symbolic importance" not only for Messina but for Sicily as a whole. Investigators suspect the paintings may have been commissioned for the black market.
The Polyptych of San Gregorio depicts the Virgin Mary with infant Jesus, accompanied by St. Gregory, St. Benedict, and angels. The stolen double-sided panel presented the Virgin and Child on one face and Christ in his suffering after death on the reverse.
According to museum officials, six paintings were targeted in total, but two panels were found abandoned on a low wall outside the museum, the reason for which remains unknown. The Polyptych of San Gregorio was notably the only work by Messina never to have left his home city.
Federico Basile, the mayor of Messina, expressed outrage at the "heinous criminal act," stating that "a heritage belonging to all the people of Messina has been violated." He vowed that "Messina will not let its history be stolen."
This incident follows closely on the heels of another art recovery in Italy. Just days prior, Italian police successfully recovered three artworks valued at over €9 million (£7.7 million) that had been stolen from a museum near Parma. In that case, two individuals were captured on video breaking into the Magnani-Rocca Foundation and stealing pieces by Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne, and Henri Matisse. Five Moldovan nationals were subsequently arrested, and the paintings were found hidden in the packaging of a television set.
In a separate high-profile art theft, over £75 million worth of jewelry was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in October of the previous year.
