Four works attributed to Antonello da Messina stolen in Messina

Four works attributed to Antonello da Messina were stolen on the evening of 15 August from the Interdisciplinary Regional Museum of Messina. The thieves bypassed the alarms and the building's other security measures.

The theft was carried out with precision. Three of the five panels of the Polyptych of San Gregorio were removed, and a small two-sided panel showing the Madonna and Christ in pietà was taken from a reinforced display case.

Police and forensic specialists went to the scene to secure the area and open investigations into how the theft was carried out and who was responsible.

A museum built on a destroyed city

The museum bears the name of Maria Accascina, a leading figure in Sicilian art history and its director from 1949 to 1963. Since June 2017 it has occupied its current, enlarged premises, built on the site of a sixteenth-century Basilian monastery destroyed in the 1908 earthquake.

The building extends over three levels and 17,118 square metres. The collections on display largely predate the earthquake and document the artistic and cultural development of Messina from prehistoric settlement to the nineteenth century, reflecting the city's historical role as one of the most important ports in the Mediterranean, through the cultural and commercial exchanges that passed through it.

The institution is known internationally precisely for the works by Antonello da Messina and Caravaggio that it holds. The theft therefore strikes at the core of what the museum is known for outside Sicily.