wishing you a happy Christmas
the Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence (also known as The Adoration) is a painting believed to date from 1609, by Caravaggio.
it was stolen on October 18, 1969 from the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily.
the local Sicilian Mafia are generally considered to be the prime culprits in the theft although nobody actually knows who committed the crime. the whereabouts of the work remain unknown to this day. rumours of its destruction during the theft or subsequently in a 1980 earthquake have circulated from time to time as has the notion that the masterpiece is now hidden abroad. in 1996, Francesco Marino Mannoia, an informant and former member of the Sicilian Mafia, claimed he had stolen the painting as a young man on the orders of a high-ranking mobster, but other sources say it was stolen by amateurs and then sold on to various Mafiosi; at one point it is said to have ended up in the hands of Rosario Riccobono, who was killed in 1982, after which it passed on to Gerlando Alberti. in 2009 Gaspare Spatuzza, a former Mafia figure turned police informer, claimed that he was told in 1999 that the painting was stolen for a private collector but had been destroyed by rats and pigs while hidden in a farm outbuilding and the remains burned
the painting is one of the most famous unrecovered stolen works of art; its theft is on the FBI's top ten list of art crimes. The value, if the work was ever sold, is estimated to be $20 million
Liked today's grille very appropriate. David & Roey
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