Four paintings by the Renaissance master Antonello da Messina were stolen from a museum in Messina, Sicily, on Saturday, Italian officials said.<\/p>\n
Taking advantage of an annual religious celebration that brings tens of thousands to Messina\u2019s streets, thieves made off with three of five panels that constitute the Polyptych of San Gregorio<\/a> as well as a small double-sided devotional painting<\/a>. They are the only works by Antonello da Messina, commonly called Antonello, that remained in his native city.<\/p>\n The celebration, the Procession of the Vara, is a religious ritual that takes places every Aug. 15. Some 100,000 people attended the celebration and the city\u2019s law enforcement officials were focused on maintaining order there, city officials said. \u201cCoinciding with la Vara, it was certainly a planned theft,\u201d Mayor Federico Basile said in a telephone interview.<\/p>\n Commissioned in the 15th century for the church of San Gregorio, which was destroyed during a devastating earthquake in 1908<\/a>, the San Gregorio altarpiece originally consisted of six panels. Only five remain and were housed at Messina\u2019s Accascina Regional Museum.<\/a><\/p>\n The thieves initially took all five remaining panels, but left two behind near a fence outside the museum, perhaps in their haste to escape, Mr. Basile said. The mayor said that passers-by noticed \u201csuspicious activity\u201d at the museum and immediately alerted the police.<\/p>\n Vincenzo Caruso, Messina\u2019s chief cultural official, said that the thieves smashed a sealed case to get to the other work they stole, a small double-sided panel that depicts the Madonna and Child with a Franciscan friar on one side, and Christ on the other.<\/p>\n He said police were reviewing security camera footage from inside and outside the museum to look for clues. \u201cFrom what I understand some people saw the theft and hopefully they took photographs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Caruso said interest in Antonello spiked this year after the Italian government bought a painting<\/a> by the artist for $15 million.<\/p>\n An official with Italy\u2019s art theft squad said investigations had begun but declined to provide further details. On Friday, Italians celebrated the recovery<\/a> of three artworks that had been stolen from a museum near Parma earlier this year.<\/p>\n Antonello is considered one of the Renaissance\u2019s great artists and is known for his mastery of portraiture. There are only some 40 works definitively attributed to him, said Grazia Musolino, an art historian who curated a recent catalog about him. \u201cHe made a crucial contribution to the Renaissance by unifying two very important aspects of Renaissance art: the work of Flemish artists and Italian art,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n