Italian law, finds its roots in Roman law, also finds influence from the Napoleonic Code, became codified and extended to the whole of Italy when unification occurred in the mid-19th century. Because of its rich cultural heritage, art specialized squads within the federal police exist to protect the counties artifacts and to investigate crimes against their culture. Today’s Crime Story takes place in 1969, and this year did not go down in Italian history as good year. The Hot Autumn of 1969 witnessed a large series of strikes, primarily in Northern Italy, over unfair wages, and terrible work conditions. More significant, several large-scale homicides occurred. Beginning in April a series of bombings perpetrated by Italian anarchists began and these bombings culminated on December 10 with the Massacre of Piazza Fontana where 18 people died and an additional 88 people were injured. This occurred just two days after the Vaile Lazio massacre occurred in Sicily as the Sicilian Mafia attempted to settle scores. With all the violence one might not have noticed the October theft of a 17th Century oil painting known as the Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence by famed artist, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, NOT. The Italians take art theft seriously and this became a major event.
Like I stated in the introduction, the story behind the art and the artist often provide a rich and interesting story in itself. Caravaggio certainly qualifies and lived quite a life and I would define him as a “tortured artist.” Unlike other artists of the time and before he did not draw out the scene of the painting and instead just painted. He used a dramatic chiaroscuro- a technique that contrasts light with darkness to bring the viewer to the crux of the scene. Also known for using models off the streets, he went against tradition of painting individuals in their finest clothes and with an angelic flair. Those during his time criticized his religious paintings but, today people claim that he was showing that religion and God was for all people not just the finely clothed elite. I viewed my first Caravaggio at my hometown museum The Kimball in Fort Worth but learned more about Caravaggio when my father dragged me to several churches in the eternal city in search of his paintings. I get the love and would describe the paintings as stunning, incredibly life-like and disturbing. Caravaggio often painted scenes of death, violence, sickliness, and torture; these subjects mirrored his own life. Now I could have done a whole episode over Caravaggio and the murder he committed, yes, you heard that correctly Caravaggio committed murder and several petty crimes.
Born in Milan in 1571, Caravaggio lost both of his parents to the plague during his childhood. Around 1595 he moved to Rome and began to sell paintings to make rent. As his profile grew over the next few years, he became notorious for drinking, gambling, sword-carrying and brawling. Caravaggio went to trial at least 11 times for things like writing libelous poems, throwing a plate of artichokes at a waiter, carrying a sword without a permit, assaulting people with his sword and one man even sued him for beating him with his sword. He went to prison for throwing stones at policemen, cursing at an officer, and offending a woman and her daughter. In 1603, Giovanni Baglione accused Caravaggio of hiring assassins to kill him. Caravaggio responded to the court filing by telling Baglione to wipe his butt with his own paintings. Troubled for sure!
The years 1605 and 1606 saw Caravaggio hit rock bottom. His landlady seized his furniture because he did not pay rent for six months, so he retaliated by throwing stones at her through her window. In November, he claimed to the hospital nurses that he harmed himself by falling on his own sword. And on May 29, 1606 he killed Ranuccio Tomassoni in a duel. Different accounts exist as to what led to the dual, all colorful. Some of the causes of the dual include a disagreement over a tennis match, a gambling debt, politics, but the most popular and my favorite states that Tomassoni pimped a sex worker who modeled in Caravaggio’s painting and Caravaggio killed him while attempting to castrate him.
Whatever the reason, Tommasoni’s wealthy family wanted justice and a court sentenced him to be beheaded. Caravaggio fled Rome and made his way to Naples. The most famous artist in Rome became the most famous painter in Naples. He won several commissions and some his most famous works came into creation. He soon found himself in trouble and fled to Malta where he attacked a senior knight and had to flee to Sicily. In 1610 he sought a pardon in Rome even sending the famed Salome with the head of John the Baptist as well as David with the head of Goliath. Caravaggio painted both with his own face as the beheaded as a sort of peace offering. The David painting went to his wealthiest patron who happened to be the nephew of the pope and who had the power to grant clemency. At this point Caravaggio began to make his way back to Rome; however, he died of a supposed “fever” along the way, dead at the age of 38. Several rumors exist as to the cause of death, fever, syphilis, infected sword wood, and lead poisoning from paint being the most common.
Caravaggio painted Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence while in Sicily and a year before his death. The painting depicts the nativity of Jesus, with saints Francis of Assisi and Lawrence surrounding Mary and the newborn Jesus. In typical Caravaggio fashion light comes to the face of the Virgin Mary. Housed in the Oratory of St. Lawrence in Palermo, Sicily, a baroque-styled church dating from the late 16th century, the painting is quite large: 6 feet by 9 foot high.
Generally believed that on the stormy night of October 17–18, 1969, two thieves stole the painting. They cut the canvas out of its frame hung on along a stucco area of the alter and rolled it up in a carpet. The first to notice the paining missing include 15-year-old Antonella Lampone, her mother, Maria Gelfo, and an aunt. All three lived in the Oratory and Antonella described “My mother and aunt were the first to arrive on the scene,” she said. “They were wailing and screaming….it was like we lost a member of our family”. In the weeks prior to the theft, Antonella recalls her mother requesting greater security for a window in the church after several suspicious individuals asked her to let them in so they could admire the painting. She wanted the Vatican Curia to secure the window accessible from the street where the Oratory displayed the Caravaggio. The Curia failed to see the need to do so.
Different theories exist as to whether amateurs or professionals stole it. The artist who later created a replica wonders “How long would it take with a Stanley knife? “You’d need two people with a ladder – you’d do it in an hour,” but the caretaker of the Oratory explains “To steal that painting, which is three by two meters, between all of Serpotta’s stucco, you had to plan it and study. The cut did not leave an inch of paint, so it is perfect. It seems to me a very professional work, and if it is professional, it has been studied, and must have been commissioned.” Whether committed by amateurs or professionals the painting has never been found.
From the beginning of the investigation the Sicilian Mafia emerged as the one real suspect. Italian authorities devised a theory that amateurs stole the painting after learning the value of the painting in a documentary airing in Italy in September 1969. They cased the Oratory and saw an opportunity to steal it. The theory believes that after the robbery, the Mafia learned of the theft and intercepted the painting. From that point the theory goes on to state that it moved from crime boss to crime boss, eventually reaching the hands of Gerlando Alberti. Alberti attempted a sale but could not complete it before being arrested in 1981. He supposedly buried the painting along with drugs and cash, but his nephew showed the burial location to authorities. To further fuel the Sicilian Mafia rumors; former members have stated that the painting stolen by the Sicilian Mafia and displayed at important mafia gatherings they have also said that the Nativity was damaged and has since been destroyed.
In 1989 and again in 1996 (some sources say 2005) a mafia informant nicknamed “Mozzarella” (real nameFrancesco Marino Mannoia) told a magistrate that he had stolen the Caravaggio, rolling up the canvas to smuggle it out of the church. Later when Mozzarella opened the canvas, the paint had partially disintegrated in the rolled carpet and the person who commissioned the crime cried and backed out of the deal. Mozzarella has given no clues on the location of the painting and hints that he ordered it cut up and burned. He also hints at the involvement of a former Italian prime minister. The Carabinieri art protection unit in Rome now believe that Mozzarella was recalling a different painting.
A hit man who assassinated the original magistrate on the case in 1992 stated that he would return it for a more lenient sentence. Another mafia hit man stated that it ended up in a barn and mice and pigs destroyed it. A British journalist claimed that he had tracked it down but that an earthquake buried it in rubble in 1980. Allegedly the mafia had been in negotiations to return the painting in return for their captured drugs and arms. A radio host claimed to have seen it in possession of one mafia boss who turned it over to another boss who subsequently destroyed it. The plethora of reports and false information leads authorities to two conclusions:
1— the painting was stolen, likely by the mafia and,
2— the painting has likely been destroyed.
In 2015, the television company Sky commissioned a replica of the painting to replace an enlarged photograph that hung in the altar. The replica job went to Factum Arte, a well-known company that uses advanced technology to create replicas Sky produced a documentary about the original painting and the reproduction. The completed replica was hung in the altar where the original was stolen from on December 12, 2015. If the Caravaggio painting ever returns to the oratory it would be a miracle but after 51 years it remains unlikely.
In 2017, the president of Italy’s parliamentary Antimafia Commission, announced a major breakthrough in the case. New testimony from someone inside the Sicilian mafia has led investigators to believe the Nativity could be recovered. They followed leads to Switzerland and to eastern Europe. But nothing has seemed to have come from these leads, which locals of Palermo calling the leads complete jester. However, the commission concluded that the painting ended up in the home of Gaetano Badalamenti, who at the time was one of the most powerful mobsters in Sicily, running a $1.65billion heroin trafficking network to the US. Badalmenti died in 2004 while serving time in a US prison.
This conclusion led authorities back to the initial investigation and the testimony of Monsignor Rocco, the custodian of the oratory. In a video interview filmed in 2001, not shared publicly until 2019, the Monsignor states that Badalamenti had the painting. The mafia boss had a slice of the canvas sent to convince the Catholic church to come to the negotiating table for its return, contacting him twice by letter. Monsignor Rocco informed the police of the letters and the piece of canvas, but the files of his statements have vanished. Rocco’s testimony seems to have been squashed by the then state official for works of art, Vencnezo Scuderi. Relations between Rocco and Scuderi were e strained because the Monsignor petitioned him for extra security for the building and it was Scuderi who authorized the documentary on the hidden treasures inside the oratory. Monsignor Rocco blames the documentary for the theft.
So, let us go back to the original investigation and three primary questions emerge:
1— When was the painting stolen? Members of the parish saw it on October 12 and the
Monsignor and the two sisters saw it missing on the 18th when preparing for next Sunday’s
mass. The theft did not become public until October 20. At any rate, time to smuggle out of
Palermo exists.
2—Police records of the crime scene no longer exist and cannot be located. Why?
3- Could a theft of a large painting hung 9 feet high be carried out by amateurs? We looked
at this question a bit ago but it should be mentioned that one Sicilian scholar suggests that
the mafia has nothing to do with the crime. A crime of this magnitude on their turf would
threaten their prestige. As a result, they claimed credit several times and in different ways but
all seem to lead to the destruction of the painting.
Sources:
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