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<\/p>\nFour artworks by 15th century painter Antonello da Messina have been stolen overnight from the Museo Regionale di Messina according to Italy’s culture minister.<\/p>\n
Culture minister Alessandro Giuli spoke on Sunday, expressing confidence in the police inquiry.<\/p>\n
The stolen art is parts of the only surviving work by the Renaissance painter to have remained in his native city, as well as a small painting acquired by the Sicilian Region two decades ago.<\/p>\n
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“Christ in Pieta”, the reverse side of a double-sided devotional panel stolen in the heist. (Museo Regionale Accascina Messina via Reuters)<\/p>\n
“I’ve learnt of the theft with shock and sadness,” Mr Giuli said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Italian media reported the thieves entered the museum on the night of August 15, a national holiday in Italy.<\/p>\n
A museum official contacted by Reuters said they could not provide any information.<\/p>\n
Sale for $15 million put museum on radar<\/p>\n
Enzo Caruso, a local councillor in charge of culture, told Italian media outlet Corriere della Sera that the heist “was almost out of a movie”.<\/p>\n
Mr Caruso said the purchase of one Messina artwork by the Italian state for $US15 million ($21 million) earlier this year may have put the museum on the criminals’ radar.<\/p>\n
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Local council believes the recent sale of a Messina painting for $US 15 million made the museum a target. (AP Photo: Gregorio Borgia)<\/p>\n
The thieves took three of five remaining panels that made up an altarpiece known as Polittico di San Gregorio.<\/p>\n
Originally comprising six panels and destined for a local monastery that was destroyed by the 1908 earthquake in Messina, the altarpiece was the only work by the Sicilian painter never to have left his hometown.<\/p>\n
The thieves took a fourth artwork from a secure display case, a small two-sided painting depicting the Virgin with Child and a Franciscan monk on one side and Christ on the other.<\/p>\n
The work was part of the Wilhelm Soldan collection and was sold by global auction house, Christie’s, to the Sicilian Region in 2003, the year it was attributed to Antonello da Messina.<\/p>\n