Renaissance Masterpieces Stolen from Sicilian Museum During National Holiday
Thieves broke into the Regional Museum of Messina (MuMem) in Sicily during Ferragosto celebrations on a Saturday evening and stole three surviving panels from Antonello da Messina’s altarpiece Polittico di San Gregorio, along with a smaller double-sided painting showing the Virgin and Child with a Franciscan monk on one side and Christ on the other. Two additional altarpiece panels were later found abandoned against a wall outside the museum, leaving three panels still missing from the five surviving components. Museum director Marisa Mercurio called the theft a major cultural loss for Messina and Sicily, noting the work’s survival through centuries and the 1908 Messina earthquake that destroyed the Monastero di San Gregorio for which the altarpiece was made. The smaller painting was sold by Christie’s to the Sicilian regional government in 2003 from the Wilhelm Soldan collection, and the article notes that in February the Italian government acquired Antonello’s Ecce Homo at Sotheby’s in New York for $14.9 million, an event praised by culture minister Alessandro Giuli.
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This story was covered in Heists and Homecomings: Art’s High-Stakes Week