Caravaggio Nativity Art Theft: Destruction by Fire, Heroin, Pigs, Rats

Summary: The Caravaggio Nativity art theft Oct. 18, 1969, in Palermo, Sicily, ends badly if the masterpiece really expired amid flames, heroin, pigs or rats.

Mafia pentiti (penitents) confess to dreadful destruction scenarios for Caravaggio's Nativity, stolen from Palermo, Sicily's Oratory of San Lorenzo in 1969; the oratory's tranquil courtyard: the oratory's tranquil courtyard: Effems, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Two informants arrived at destruction by fire as the outcome of the Caravaggio Nativity art theft Oct. 18, 1969, whereas another informant associated the painting's destruction with a badly buried, booty-filled chest.

Francesco Marino Mannoia, one of the informants called pentiti (penitent informers), brought personal perspectives as the self-confessed, in 1996, of two Caravaggio Nativity art theft perpetrators. He confessed to cutting with a razor blade, folding, gashing in an elevator door and incinerating the canvas because of the ideator's bemoaning and canceling consignment.

Roberto Conforti, Carabinieri (Military Police) Art Squad Commandant, declared, "This is the first time that a pentito has admitted to being the author of this crime." General Conforti, carabiniere since 1961 and art investigations chief retired since 2002, emphasized, "We have a confession. Now we have to see if it is trustworthy."

Mafia pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia (nickname: Mozzarella) is a self-confessed gasher and incinerator of the stolen Caravaggio Nativity; Mannoia under arrest by two policemen, New Year's Day, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 1980: Enzo Brai/Mondadori Portfolio, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Caravaggio scholar Maurizio Marini (Nov. 4, 1942-Aug. 3, 2011) found "something fishy" since "Even a chicken thief knows that paintings should be rolled and not folded." He gave in explanation, "It could be true that he was one of the underdogs who stole the painting, but I don't think it was destroyed."

Peter Robb, Australian-born author of M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio and of Midnight in Sicily, has the same outlook as one of General Conforti's officers. The Art Work Protection Unit officer indicates, "He [Francesco Mannoia] didn't lie. He just remembered wrongly. Another painting was stolen in Palermo around the same time." He judges that "That's the one he took, the one that was ruined" sometime around the perpetration of the Caravaggio Nativity art theft Oct. 17-18, 1969.

Mafia pentito Gaspare Spatuzza has linked Caravaggio Nativity theft with Mafia bosses: Blitz quotidiano @BlitzQuotidiano, via Twitter Sep. 30, 2014

Fiery destruction after brutal takeaways and rough hideaways kindled the Caravaggio Nativity art theft-related account by Gaspare Spatuzza, pentito from Brancaccio, traditional working-class quarter within Palermo.

Spatuzza, like Salvatore Cancemi (March 19, 1942-Jan. 14, 2011), Cupola (dome literally, Sicilian Mafia Commission culturally) member and subsequent pentito, linked the Nativity with Mafia bosses. Both pentiti mentioned the top bosses as maintaining the Caravaggio Nativity propped against a wall during the meetings of the Sicilian Mafia Commission into the 1980s.

Spatuzza noted the painting's nestling into a barn, where neglect netted the barn-themed oil on canvas getting "ruined, eaten by rats and hogs, and therefore burned." He offered as the location of the demise of the only Caravaggio Nativity art theft casualty a barn of the Palermo-based clan of Giovan Battista Pullarà.

Lynda Albertson of Association for Research into Crimes Against Art professes, "I am quite confident that no one left a Caravaggio in a barn with pigs." The Rome-based organization's Chief Executive Officer quips, "You might do that if you are a crazy person, but this was a bit more organized than that."

A third reconstruction rolls the masterpiece into a carpet within a chest replete with 11.02 pounds (5 kilograms) of heroin and millions of euros in cash. No Carabinieri-organized search yet supports burial of the destroyed Nativity in a cash-filled, drug-stuffed chest on alleged trafficker Gerlando Alberti's (Sept. 18, 1927-Feb. 1, 2012) property.

Giovanni Pastore, Carabinieri Art Squad Colonel and Vice-Commandant retired since 2011, treats Caravaggio Nativity art theft casualty destructions as non-evidential and hideaways in Italy as likely.

Could the stolen Caravaggio Nativity be enclosed in a cash-filled, drug-stuffed chest on the property of Gerlando Alberti, a member of Cosa Nostra's Porta Nuova family in Palmero? Nicknamed U Paccarè (the imperturbable one), he is credited with saying, "Mafia? What is that? A kind of cheese?"; Gerlando Alberti at a Mafia trial in the 1970s: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Mafia pentiti (penitents) confess to dreadful destruction scenarios for Caravaggio's Nativity, stolen from Palermo, Sicily's Oratory of San Lorenzo in 1969; the oratory's tranquil courtyard: Effems, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OSL_(Palermo)_16_07_2019_26.jpg

Mafia pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia (nickname: Mozzarella) is a self-confessed gasher and incinerator of the stolen Caravaggio Nativity; Mannoia under arrest by two policemen, New Year's Day, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 1980: Enzo Brai/Mondadori Portfolio, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francescomannoia.jpg

Mafia pentito Gaspare Spatuzza has linked Caravaggio Nativity theft with Mafia bosses: Blitz quotidiano @BlitzQuotidiano, via Twitter tweet of Sep. 30, 2014, @ https://twitter.com/BlitzQuotidiano/status/516958053544235008

Caravaggio's Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence (Natività con i Santi Lorenzo e Francesco d'Assisi): Yorck Project, Public Domian, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo_Caravaggio_035.jpg

Could the stolen Caravaggio Nativity be enclosed in a cash-filled, drug-stuffed chest on the property of Gerlando Alberti, a member of Cosa Nostra's Porta Nuova family in Palmero? Nicknamed U Paccarè (the imperturbable one), he is credited with saying, "Mafia? What is that? A kind of cheese?"; Gerlando Alberti at a Mafia trial in the 1970s: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gerlando_Alberti.JPG

For further information:

Blitz quotidiano @BlitzQuotidiano. 30 September 2014. "Gaspare Spatuzza: 'Io responsabile di 40 omicidi, chiedo perdono." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/BlitzQuotidiano/status/516958053544235008

"M 6.9 - southern Italy." United States Geological Survey > Science > Science Explorer > Earthquake Hazards Program > Earthquakes > Significant Earthquakes Archive > Earthquake Lists, Maps & Statistics > Significant Earthquakes - 1980.
Available @ https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usp0001ay4#executive

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 November 2017. "Caravaggio Nativity Art Theft: Deadly Brutal Takeaway, Rough Hideaway." Earth and Space News Blog. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/11/caravaggio-nativity-art-theft-deadly.html

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. "Italy: Avellino, Potenza, Castera, Naples." National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration > National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service > National Centers for Environmental Information > Natural Hazards > Significant Earthquake Database.
Available @ https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/struts/results?eq_0=4903&t=101650&s=13&d=22,26,13,12&nd=display

Poole, Robert M. July 2005. "Ripped from the Walls (and the Headlines)." Smithsonian Magazine > Arts & Culture > Art > Art Crimes.
Available @ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/ripped-from-the-walls-and-the-headlines-74998018/

Robb, Peter. 2001. M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio. New York NY: Picador.

Robb, Peter. 2007. Midnight in Sicily. New York NY: Picador.

Schütze, Sebastian. 2017. Caravaggio: Complete Works. Cologne, Germany: Taschen.

Watson, Peter. 1984. The Caravaggio Conspiracy: A True Story of Deception, Theft, and Smuggling in the Art World. New York NY: Penguin/Doubleday.