Thieves have stolen four paintings by Early Renaissance master Antonello da Messina from a museum on the island of Sicily in southern Italy, according to a report by news agency Reuters.
The heist occurred at the Regional Interdisciplinary Museum on August 15 at approximately 9:50 p.m. local time. Intruders managed to disable the venue's security system before taking the historic masterworks.
The stolen items include three of the five panels that make up Antonello's celebrated San Gregorio polyptych, a multi-panel Renaissance altarpiece. Intruders also carried off a double-sided painting on wood depicting the Madonna and Christ in Pieta, removing the artwork directly from inside its protective display case.
Museum director Maris Mercurio described the burglary as a shocking incident. Mercurio said that two of Antonello's most important works were taken, calling their disappearance a major loss for the museum, the city of Messina, the local community, and the international art world.
Master of oil painting techniques
Antonello da Messina was a prominent Italian painter of the Early Renaissance, born in the Sicilian port city of Messina around 1430. He gained widespread recognition for introducing Flemish oil painting techniques to Italian art, having adopted the medium after studying the work of Netherlandish masters.
His paintings were renowned for combining the geometric perspective and structural clarity of the Italian Renaissance with the meticulous attention to light, detail, and surface texture characteristic of northern European traditions. His most famous surviving masterpiece, Saint Jerome in His Study, is held at the National Gallery in London.
Recent museum security breaches
The Sicilian theft comes amid heightened security concerns for Italian cultural institutions following a similar crime in northern Italy. Masked thieves previously carried out an attack on a private museum in the province of Parma, stealing valuable works by French masters Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne, and Henri Matisse.
