The mysterious fate of the masterpiece of the artist Caravaggio

In 1969, the masterpiece 'Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco' masterpiece of Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was stolen . A burglary that until now, that is 45 years of tracing, people still have not found the culprit and the precious picture.

In the autumn of 1608, Caravaggio was on the run. With his aggressive and arrogant nature, Caravaggio is always involved in quarrels. He used a sword to intimidate and tossed a hot plate of artichokes into the waiter's face, the reason being that a piece of artichoke was cooked with butter and not cooking oil.

Caravaggio

Once, Caravaggio killed a man when arguing about a betting debt. Before being prosecuted for murder, he escaped from the capital of Rome and lived in seclusion for most of his short life to avoid the law.

Shortly after being in Naples and Malta, Caravaggio arrived in Sicily and stayed on this island for about a year. During that time, he often carried daggers with him and sleep always flickered. Here, too, he drew some masterpieces for life, including 'Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco'.

For more than three and a half centuries, the painting still hangs in the only place on the altar at the San Lorenzo chapel in Palermo city until a stormy October night in 1969. That night, the thieves quietly cut picture out of frame. Since then, no one except the thieves saw this masterpiece. The painting is valued at US $ 20 million and is on the list of 10 unresolved art cases of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Today, sitting on the original picture of the San Lorenzo Chapel is a faded simulation, like the weak ghost of the stolen masterpiece.

The disappearance of masterpieces is a tremendous loss to Western art. Caravaggio was 39 years old when he died in 1610, so the number of works he left for life was not much, only about 70. Therefore, losing even a masterpiece is a tremendous loss to mankind.

Caravaggio often takes very ordinary people to make drawings. The theme of traditional God is portrayed in a non-traditional way. Commenting on the 'Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco' painting, art historian Danielle Carrabino, said: 'The painting is deeply impressive. God seems to be a tired child, almost asleep on a haystack. The mother seems exhausted after giving birth. The picture is not only the birth of the savior, but also the image of any mother who has just given birth to a child. By associating this image with our real life, Caravaggio graphics can touch more viewers. He even left space for us to participate in this spectacle, so that we really felt we were part of the event. '

After the theft, people have many theories about the culprit. Many people noted that the painting appeared in a television show about Italy's artistic treasure aired shortly before the burglary. They think the thieves know the importance of masterpieces through this program and may be just opportunistic criminals, not art-savvy.

Masterpieces stolen

Another theory is that mafia is the culprit of the precious picture. They often steal precious paintings and exchange them for drugs and weapons. The profit earned from works of art is second only to profits from drug trading.

This hypothesis was reinforced when many years later, some former mafia people revealed about Caravaggio's painting. According to one of them, thieves while cutting the picture out of the frame caused the painting to be so bad that when they showed it to the subscriber, the person burst into tears. Others said the painting was hidden in the annex on a farm and was eaten by pigs and rats and then burned. Or as if someone said it was stored in an iron box buried in the ground with lots of money and drugs or may have been exchanged for diamonds in South Africa . And so, more and more speculation, fake theory without leading people anywhere.

The theft itself is also heavily woven. Much information is based on untrustworthy rumors and then 'fictionalized'. One thing is certain that the oil painting has been removed from the frame by a cutter or a razor blade. One more thing is that the painting never left the Italian territory because there were no rumors about it outside Italy. And everything related to the fate of the painting, whether it's burned or still lost somewhere, people don't have proof, it's all just a rumor.

Nearly half a century has passed, the opportunity to find masterpieces is increasingly fuzzy. For Giovanni Pastore, a member of the police team investigating Italy's art-related cases, unless he finds evidence that the painting has been destroyed, he will still believe it exists. somewhere and continue to investigate.