[CPProt.net] Rome: Message to the Mafia: City wants its stolen Caravaggio returned

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Message to the Mafia: City wants its stolen Caravaggio returned
By Hilary Clarke in Rome
(Filed: 27/11/2005)

>From the cells of Italy's maximum-security jails to the auction rooms of the
international art world, its whereabouts have been the subject of
speculation for more than 35 years.

Since Caravaggio's Nativity with Saints Francis and Lawrence disappeared
from a church in Sicily in 1969, it is reported to have been glimpsed at a
Mafia wedding, buried in a Sicilian chest, sold to an eastern European
collector, or simply destroyed.

Yet despite the combined efforts of the Italian police, Interpol and the FBI
no trace has been found.

Now the people of Palermo have taken matters into their own hands and
launched an effort to persuade whoever has it to hand it back. Inspired by a
recently-published novel by a local writer, in which the missing masterpiece
is unearthed, more than 1,000 residents have signed a petition appealing to
the underworld to tell all.

"We want to send out the message that it won't do any harm to give it back
and it might even do some good," said Riccardo Agnello, the head of the
Palermo branch of the Italian Environment Fund, who is organising the
campaign.

The picture, which is estimated to be worth £20 million, was painted in
1609, during one of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's last flourishes. His
own turbulent circumstances perhaps explain the appeal of his work to
Mafiosi collectors. On the run for murdering a young man after a fierce
argument, he spent a year on Sicily before returning to the mainland. He
died a year later in a manner never fully explained.

The Italian police admits it has no strong leads, but officers believe that
the painting passed into Mafia hands soon after it was cut from its frame.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/