MESSINA.- Four paintings attributed to Renaissance master Antonello da Messina remain missing after a daring theft from the Museo Regionale di Messina in Sicily, where investigators are now examining surveillance footage and the circumstances surrounding the security breach.
The crime has struck at the heart of a collection closely connected to Messina’s own turbulent history. The museum preserves hundreds of works tracing the city’s cultural development, including objects rescued from the destruction caused by the catastrophic 1908 earthquake. Among its best-known holdings are paintings by Antonello, who was born in Messina, as well as major works by Caravaggio.
At the center of the investigation is Antonello’s Polittico di San Gregorio, or San Gregorio Polyptych, a signed and dated work from 1473. The surviving ensemble consists of five panels: the enthroned Madonna and Child, Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Benedict, the Announcing Angel and the Virgin Annunciate. The work originally came from the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria extra moenia, also known as San Gregorio.
During the theft on Saturday, August 15, all five surviving panels were reportedly removed. Two were then abandoned outside the museum, while the thieves escaped with the remaining three. A separate small, double-sided painting attributed to Antonello was also taken from a protected display case, leaving four painted works still missing.
The timing coincided with one of Messina’s most important annual celebrations. Large crowds had gathered in the city for the Assumption Day festivities and the traditional procession known as La Vara, which takes place on Ferragosto, Italy’s major August holiday.
Questions are now focusing on how the thieves were able to remove the works despite the museum’s security arrangements. Sicily’s regional government said Sunday that both the alarm and video-surveillance systems had functioned normally. Recordings and other information collected at the museum have been turned over to investigators.
Regional authorities have also opened an internal inspection to reconstruct what happened inside the museum and determine whether failures involving security personnel or procedures contributed to the theft. The Sicilian government said it is cooperating with prosecutors and law-enforcement agencies handling the investigation.
The loss of the polyptych panels is especially significant because of the work’s unusual connection to Messina. According to the Sicilian cultural heritage authorities, it is the only work by Antonello to have remained in his native city. The painting had already endured a difficult history before the theft: it underwent problematic restoration work in the 19th century and suffered substantial damage during the 1908 earthquake.
The surviving five-panel arrangement is itself incomplete. The polyptych originally included another section in its upper register, believed to have represented a Piet or the dead Christ supported by angels. Despite the work’s division into separate panels and its traditional gold background, scholars have noted the unusually unified visual conception of the composition, which reflects Antonello’s place at the intersection of Italian, Flemish, Catalan and Mediterranean painting traditions.
The second stolen work, a small painting decorated on both sides, had entered Sicily’s regional holdings in the 2000s and was displayed alongside the polyptych as one of the museum’s principal Antonello works. The museum’s official collection overview identifies both objects among the works for which the institution is internationally known.
The theft comes during renewed international attention surrounding Antonello da Messina. Earlier this year, the Italian government acquired an Ecce Homo attributed to the artist in a transaction connected with Sotheby’s in New York for approximately $15 million.
That increased visibility has prompted speculation about whether the Messina theft was specifically commissioned, although investigators have not publicly established a motive. The extraordinary recognizability of the paintings would make them exceptionally difficult to introduce into the legitimate art market.
For Messina, however, the significance of the missing works cannot be measured simply through their potential market value. The San Gregorio Polyptych survived centuries of upheaval and the earthquake that transformed the city in 1908. More than a century later, three of its surviving panels have now been removed from the place where Antonello created one of the most enduring artistic links between his work and his native city.
The investigation into their whereabouts is continuing.
