FOUR priceless Renaissance masterpieces have been snatched in a brazen museum raid after thieves somehow slipped past its alarms and security systems undetected.
The raiders breached the MuMe museum in Sicily before disappearing with four works attributed to celebrated 15th-century painter Antonello da Messina.
Four priceless Renaissance paintings have been snatched in a brazen museum raid Credit: Reuters
The stolen treasures include a double-sided painting depicting the Madonna with Child and Christ in Pietà. Credit: Reuters
Their haul includes three panels from the 1473 San Gregorio Polyptych and a double-sided painting depicting the Madonna with Child and Christ in Pietà.
Italy’s Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli described the paintings as being of “extraordinary value” as cops launched a major probe into the audacious theft.
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Investigators are now scrambling to establish how the thieves got inside and whether the daring raid was a carefully orchestrated hit.
Italian news agency Ansa reported that cops are initially working on the suspicion the masterpieces were stolen to order for the shadowy black market.
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One of the paintings was reportedly taken directly from inside a secure display case, while all four works were painted on wooden panels.
This rules out the easy option of rolling them up and slipping away unnoticed.
Museum director Marisa Mercurio said the theft is believed to have happened at around 9.50pm on Saturday.
“We are shocked by what happened,” she told Ansa, describing it as “a great loss for the museum, for the city, the community and the art world”.
She later told Sky TG24 that the museum was “devastated” by the loss.
“These are not merely works by Antonello da Messina. They are works that hold considerable significance in terms of our identity, as well as, of course, their artistic and cultural value, because they are works by our very own Antonello da Messina.”
The brazen raid took place during Ferragosto, Italy’s national summer holiday on August 15, when the country is at the height of its summer getaway season.
ART HEIST RIDDLE Renaissance paintings of ‘extraordinary value’ STOLEN after thieves mysteriously raid museum without setting off alarm….Art stolen from the Museo Regionale Accascina in Messina, Italy Credit: Reuters
One of the paintings was reportedly taken directly from inside a secure display case Credit: EPA
Messina mayor Federico Basile said he was “deeply outraged” by the “heinous criminal act.
“A heritage belonging to all the people of Messina has been violated,” he said. “Messina will not let its history be stolen.”
Among the stolen treasures are three of the five surviving panels from Antonello’s San Gregorio Polyptych, painted in 1473.
The breathtaking altarpiece originally consisted of six panels and shows the Virgin Mary cradling the dead Christ in Pieta, flanked by St Gregory and St Benedict and surrounded by angels.
Its surviving fragments are exceptionally rare – making the disappearance of three panels a devastating blow to Sicily’s artistic heritage.
The second stolen work is a small double-sided panel showing the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ and a Franciscan monk on one side, and Christ in death on the other.
Its intimate size suggests it was originally made for private worship.
Born around 1430, Antonello trained in Naples before returning to his native Messina, where he worked from 1457 until 1474 and established himself as one of the early Renaissance’s great masters.
Museum director Marisa Mercurio said the theft is believed to have happened at around 9.50pm on Saturday Credit: Reuters
Art-crime analyst Lynda Albertson warned the thieves could find themselves holding a white elephant if they were ordinary criminals hoping to cash in.
Stealing an Antonello, she said, “may be far easier than selling one” – with the thieves likely to discover that “to their cost”.
Albertson told La Repubblica that famous artworks can be passed between criminals and even used as collateral for other illegal activity.
Local culture councillor Enzo Caruso described the extraordinary raid as “almost out of a movie”.
He suggested Italy’s government purchase of another Antonello da Messina earlier this year may have helped put the artist’s works on the radar of the thieves.
The shock heist comes just days after Italy’s specialist art-crime unit recovered three masterpieces by Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse.
The paintings, worth a combined €9million (£7.8million), were snatched from a museum near Parma in March during a lightning raid lasting just minutes.
The museum’s alarm system eventually thwarted the gang from stealing even more.
Now the latest audacious theft has once again thrown the security of Europe’s museums into the spotlight.
Last year, a gang brazenly stormed the Louvre in Paris in broad daylight and escaped with historic jewellery worth a staggering €88million.
