Four 'extraordinary' Renaissance paintings stolen from Italian museum

What the report says

Four Renaissance paintings attributed to Antonello da Messina were stolen from the Regional Interdisciplinary Museum of Messina in Sicily on Saturday night, according to Italy’s culture minister and reporting by BBC World News. The missing works include three panels from the Polyptych of San Gregorio and a double-sided panel of the Madonna with Child and Christ in Pietà. Officials said the pieces are described as being of “extraordinary value.”

BBC World News reported that investigators are examining how the thieves entered the museum without setting off alarms and whether the theft was carried out by professionals. Italian news agency Ansa, as cited by the BBC, said the Madonna and Child panel was taken from a secure display case. Because the artworks are painted on wooden panels, they could not easily be rolled up or moved in the way canvas paintings sometimes can.

Museum director Marisa Mercurio said the theft appears to have happened around 21:50 local time. Messina’s mayor, Federico Basile, condemned the incident as a serious violation of the city’s heritage. Antonello da Messina was a 15th-century Sicilian painter and an important early Renaissance artist. The theft adds to recent concern in Europe about the security of museum collections and the risk of art being removed from public view.