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Showing posts with label Church Theft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Church Theft. Show all posts

April 23, 2021

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Stealing venerated relics: An ancient pastime that lives on today

The Cistercian abbey of San Galgano

The Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale - TPC) have recovered the Reliquary of San Galgano, a work possibly attributed to the 14th-century goldsmith Ugolino di Vieri.  The Medieval Christian object of faith was stolen from the Seminario Arcivescovile Siena more than 30 years ago, in 1989.

Over time, by accident and changes, little remains of San Galgano except for some of the church's relics and a fantastic sword which is a story unto itself.  Most of the accessory structures of the Cistercian abbey are gone, leaving us with only the roofless building's stone skeleton with its grouped piers and ribbed vaults.  Despite its ruin, it is an impressive Gothic architectural masterpiece and one of the most exquisite religious structures in Tuscany. 

Recovered along with ten other stolen works of art, the Reliquary of San Galgano's is believed to have been stolen as a theft to order.   And as sacrilegious as that may sound, given what reliquaries are used for, stealing venerated religious objects is not as uncommon as one would like to think.  

Nor should the theft of these types of liturgical items be underestimated, as their intrinsic worth is more than the sum of their antiquarian value.  Their uniqueness being more that just the costly materials they are made from, or the fame of the artist who crafted them.

Creepy though it may be, their true value lies in the “valueless.” For its the bits and pieces, things like the skull, jaw, left ilium, or even the foreskin of the departed that catch the eye of Church devotees as well as thieves.  In 1087, shortly before the First Crusade, sixty-two sailors from Bari stole the actual bones of St. Nicholas, interred at a church in Myra, a city in modern-day Turkey.  Back then, in the beginning of the High Middle Ages, religious relics were big business. Having a relic brought pilgrims, and with pilgrims came money. So it's no small wonder that a new church, the Pontifical Basilica di San Nicola, was built afer his bones were taken, as Nicholas' disinterred remains drew quite an audience.

St. Catherine of Siena, who died in Rome in 1839 lies buried inside the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Her dismembered holy head however, was parted from her body and secreted back to her home town where her patrons in Siena inserted it into a gilt bust of bronze. Other parts of her body are scattered inside and outside of Italy.

But not all thefts where committed by the religiously well intentioned, intent on veneration.  Flash forward to the modern era and the reliquary of San Franco, known as the Hermit of Gran Sasso, was stolen in Assorgi in 1974 only to be found later with an antique dealer in Milan.  Likewise, the remains of the immensely influential philosopher  St. Thomas Aquinas were stolen in Naples in 1978 with some saying all that was left was an odor of sanctity.  His silver case ended up as a religious novelty on a collector's shelf.

Having said that, not all church thieves steal for a quick and easy payout. Some commit acts which are even more blasphemous, ghoulishly holding the very bones of the venerated hostage.   On November 7, 1981 two men armed with guns struck the Chiesa di San Geremia in the Cannaregio area of Venice. Breaking into a glass coffin on the main altar, the hooligans snatched the wrapped remains of Saint Lucia, one of the early church's most famous martyrs, leaving the scene so quickly they left her head and mask behind.  

Six and a half years later, on April 18, 1988, the remains of Pope Celestino V were swiped from the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L'Aquila.  Thankfully, his bones were recovered two days later in a niche of the cemetery of Cornelle and Roccapassa where the crooks had parked the Pope temporarily, hoping to lay low until the investigation died down.  

A year later thieves also took the bones of the peasant who became a friar, St. Joseph of Copertino (the patron saint of flyers).  And, as recently as 2020, a gold and crystal casing holding droplets of blood from Pope John Paul II was nicked from the  Cathedral in Spoleto.

Despite breaking one of the Church's Ten Commandments, no one but the thief and his maker may understand what provoked each of these individuals to steal a particular relic, or in the case of the Reliquary of San Galgano, why the thief's sponsor coveted this particular item. But it is up against this backdrop that we can understand a little bit why some see the return as a small miracle.

The restitution ceremony for this and the other recovered artworks will be held at 3:00 pm on Monday, April 26th at the Sala del Palazzo Arcivescovile di Siena.  Presided over by Italy's Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, as well as the cardinal, his most reverend eminence, Augusto Paolo Lojudice, Roberto Ricciardi, Commander of the Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage; Barabra Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museums and Gianluigi Marmora, Commander of the Carabinieri Unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Palermo there is sure to be an interesting story to tell. 

The event will also be "live" streamed on the Archidiocesi di Siena YouTube channel should you like to listen in. 

September 28, 2020

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Two Arrested for Robbery and Vandalism at Church of Sant’Agata al Collegio in Sicily


Image Credit: Associazione Gesù Nazareno - Caltanissetta

Article By: Lynette Turnblom

For the second time in under two months the Chiesa di Sant’Agata al Collegio in Caltanissetta, Sicily has been damaged by acts of vandalism and the theft of sacred objects.  On 22 September 2020, two suspicious suspects were seen walking at a fast pace away from the zone surrounding the church carrying an unusually shaped wrapped object.  Upon noting patrolling officers nearby, the pair picked up their pace, leading the city police to call for backup in order to stop them for questioning. 

Image Credit Radio CL1

The young men, later identified as Alessio Pio Raul and Giannone Salvatore, were located and stopped by the police ten minutes south of the seventeenth-century Jesuit church.  In their possession, law enforcement officers found a golden brooch, a church reliquary, a container for holy oil, and 161 euros in coins.  

Image Credit: Associazione Gesù Nazareno - Caltanissetta

Reviewing video surveillance cameras installed in the area, police were able to reconstruct the events related to the church burglary, which showed two suspects breaking in through the door of the church library, where the pair went on to ransacked an office and vending machines where they likely removed the large sum of coins they were carrying when stopped by police,  The duo then moved on to the church itself.

In addition to theft and vandalism of the music school and library, once inside the Baroque church the two thieves attacked various altar spaces, removing a chrismarium, (a ceremonial container for holy oil) and a church ciborium used to hold hosts for, and after, the Eucharist.  



Rushing to steal what they could carry, the thieves left communion host wafers scattered in their wake and heavily disrupted the church's sleeping Madonna, a memorial representation of Mary's uncorrupted body and soul representing the moment of transit from earthly life to the Assumption. 

It is from this peaceful representation of the mother of the church that the thieves filched the gold brooch, later recovered when the pair were stopped by police.  And as if that wasn't enough, the marauders had also gathered up all of the church's candlesticks, piling them in a corner, probably in order to return for them at some later time.  Thankfully, at least in this instance, following the suspects' apprehension, all of the stolen items have now been returned to the parish priest. 

Yet, as mentioned earlier, this act of theft and vandalism came less than a month after an earlier attack on the church.  The first occasion was reported on the 23rd of August.  Similar to the second theft, thieves again had entered the vulnerable church through its library vandalizing the parish and taking offering coins.  At the time of this first theft, Father Gaetano Caneletta said, “it is an offense to our faith and a serious wound to our artistic heritage.”

As shown by these two back-to-back attacks on Chiesa di Sant’Agata al Collegio in such a short time frame, churches are can be viewed as easy targets for thieves.  As Domenica Giani, the head of Vatican police has said, “Humanity’s spiritual thirst and desire to praise God have given life to works of inestimable value and to a religious patrimony that gives rise to greed and the interest of art traffickers.”

While the sacrality of churches may prevent some thieves from targeting them, the abundance of invaluable art housed within them may be too tempting a target for others.  The FBI and the Carabinieri TPC have each outlined several ways that churches can help to protect their artworks and sacred objects: 

  1. Develop an inventory This proves crucial in identifying and locating and recovering items of historic, cultural, or artistic value. The house-of-worship staff should retain a comprehensive list of all valuable church property. Detailed written records of objects should include the medium, dimensions, material, proof or artist marks, and any other similar details and should be reviewed periodically to ensure all objects are present and accounted for as not all thefts are not discovered immediately. 
  2. Establish and maintain a current and up to date photographic record: While maintaining written files of artifacts is essential, digital photography makes it easy for staff may store and, if necessary, print high-quality color photos of each item. These pictures can be extremely useful when reporting a loss to the police or notifying registries of objects stolen during a theft or burglary. Photographic records should include all sides of the object.  
  3. Marking items: Initially, it may appear impossible to mark all church related items because of composition or intrinsic value; however, contemporary options to consider for high-value objects could be the use of a forensic asset marking agent, or radio-frequency identification (RFID) which uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects sounding an alarm when objects are moved. 
  4. Insure property: Where financially feasible, office staff and clergy should review the church's casualty insurance coverage to ascertain that the property protection program includes a clause for all historic artifacts and lists particularly high-value items separately.

Maintaining a relationship with local law enforcement is also integral for church officials and can result in more rapid response time and a smoother investigation in cases of theft.  In the case of the attempted theft at Santa Maria Maddalena in Liguria in 2019 the police and the church were able to work together to replace a targeted painting by the 17th-century Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger with a copy when they received advanced intelligence of a potential theft.  Through their collaboration, the church was able to continue operating as normal without the risk of losing their €3.4 million masterpiece.  

In this recent case at Sant’Agata al Collegio, the alert police officers in Caltanissetta were able to respond quickly to the robbery and to retrieve the church's stolen objects.  Police are still investigating the involvement of possible co-conspirators including two other suspected accomplices, one male and one female, both also in their twenties. 

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Bibliography:

Arma dei Carabinieri. ‘Linee guida per la tutela dei beni culturali ecclesiastici’. Ufficio Nazionale per i beni culturali ecclesiastici:, November 2014. https://www.beniculturali.it/mibac/multimedia/MiBAC/documents/feed/pdf/Linee%20Guida%20Tutela%20Beni%20Culturali%20Ecclesiastici-imported-48392.pdf.
Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio. ‘Caltanissetta, vandalizzata la chiesa di Sant’Agata al Collegio. Malviventi rubano anche le offerte’. Seguo News, 23 August 2020, sec. Seguo News - Notizie Caltanissetta. http://www.seguonews.it/caltanissetta-vandalizzata-la-chiesa-di-santagata-al-collegio-malviventi-rubano-anche-le-offerte.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. ‘Theft: A Real Threat to Religious Heritage’. Government. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 7 December 2016. https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/theft-a-real-threat-to-religious-heritage.
Giuffrida, Angela. ‘Italian Police Reveal “€3m Painting” Stolen from Church Was a Copy’. The Guardian, 13 March 2019, sec. Art and design. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/mar/13/thieves-steal-3m-painting-by-brueghel-the-younger.
Polizia di Stato. ‘Caltanissetta, Arrestati Dalla Polizia Di Stato Due Ventenni Responsabili Del Raid Notturno Alla Chiesta Di Sant’Agata al Collegio.’ Government. Polizia di Stato, 23 September 2020. https://questure.poliziadistato.it/Caltanissetta/articolo/7945f6aec1680d6c151646476.
Povoledo, Elisabetta. ‘Thieves Trying to Steal Precious Painting Get Worthless Copy’. The New York Times, 14 March 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/arts/design/brueghel-crucifixion-painting-stolen.html.
Radio CL1. ‘Arrestati Dalla Squadra Mobile Gli Autori Del Raid Nella Chiesa Di Sant’Agata’. Radio CL1, 22 September 2020. https://share.xdevel.com/.
Stewart, Nan. ‘Thieves Stole a $3.4 Million Bruegel From a Rural Italian Church—or So They Thought. Here’s How the Village Tricked Them’. Artnet News, 13 March 2019, sec. Art and Law. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pieter-brueghel-theft-1487668.

June 4, 2020

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Revisiting the UK's Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act of 2003

The Torbryan rood screen
This Friday ARCA reviews one of the few successful cases of prosecution using the UK's Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act of 2003.

Christopher Cooper was an unemployed, amateur antique dealer in the United Kingdom, who is known to have targeted unsecured places of worship, stealing a range of ecclesiastic objects, including bibles, crucifixes, Anglo Saxon carvings and even the top and bottom of a stone coffin from St Mary’s Church in Foy in Herefordshire - a heavy relic he pilfered over the course of two separate raids, as the first went unnoticed.  

In addition to stealing from vulnerable religious institutions, Cooper was discovered to have manufactured his own "antiques," passing them off to his customers as genuine, often defaced as historic relics.  Some of the objects he was charged with selling included historic religious statues, stained glass, stone coffins, crosses, baptismal font plugs, and rare bibles. 

Over the course of his three-year crime spree, it was reported that Cooper pocketed from up to £150,000 from the proceeds of his criminal activity, brokering the sale of stolen objects via at least two purportedly unsuspecting individuals, whom he never met face-to-face, as he used a third party for the delivery of the pieces to maintain some semblance of distance from their apparent sale. 

Partial Chronology of events in this case:

September 2011 - September 2014
Posing as an ordinary visitor, Cooper targeted quiet churches throughout England and Wales where his activity would remain largely unnoticed, in some cases even until after his arrest. 

2012 
Entering Coombes Parish Church, in Lancing, Cooper stole a 13th-century Lancing corpus of Jesus Christ which had been fixed to a crucifix 12 feet above the ground. The 10 cm gilded copper figure of Christ, thought to have been crafted in Limoges, France, was first recovered in the churchyard at Coombes Parish Church in 1877, likely the victim of the cultural upheaval that at one point splintered Catholic Europe and spurred a revival of iconoclasm. 

2013 
Cooper hacked a pair of 15th-century decorative oak panels out of the Torbryan rood screen which divides the nave from the altar area of the church at the Holy Trinity church at Torbryan in Devon. These historic panels were one of only a few of the 40 panels which once stretched the width of the church. Like the Lancing corpus, these decorative panels also had survived the iconoclasm of the reformation in the 16th century and were painted with the images of St Victor of Marseilles and St Margaret of Antioch.

1535 Myles Coverdale Bible:
The First Bible Printed in the English
This same year, Cooper also offered a rare Coverdale bible to an unnamed collector for £18,000, apparently before he had time to steal the object, or perhaps never intending to send anything at all. Concerned that the object purchased and paid for had not been sent, the buyer informed the Metropolitan Police and filed a report with the art and antiques unit.     

Around this same period, the Metropolitan Police received information from HM Revenue and Customs relating to the illegal importation of a stuffed gorilla's head by an individual in South London, an object subject to CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. As a result of their subsequent search of that individual's property, a number of ecclesiastic objects were recovered, including the two oak church panels which had been stolen from Holy Trinity Church in Devon, as well as a heart stone from another religious institution. 

When questioned by the police, the buyer of the gorilla head and religious panels admitted that he had bought ecclesiastic items online from a man from Herefordshire.  Based on these accumulative leads, a nationwide police initiative, into the organised theft and black market trade of religious and church artifacts in England and Wales, code-named "Icarus," began.

January 2015
Eighteen months later, the investigation "Icarus" which brought in the West Mercia Police, is headed up by Detective Inspector Martyn Barnes, with the support of the Met's Art and Antiques unit in London. 

The West Mercia Police arrest Cooper under suspicion of a series of church thefts carried out in a number of areas including: in Warwickshire, Herefordshire, Ross on Wye, Ledbury, Monmouth, Abergavenny, Brecon, south and north Wales, Warwick, Cirencester, Kent, Suffolk, and Oxfordshire Sussex, Essex, and Swindon. While not originally cooperative, police recovered a number of stolen objects found in Cooper's possession, including historic stonework, friezes, statues, paintings, brasses, misericords, stained glass, and first edition King James Bibles which Cooper had stolen from churches across Wales, replacing them with modern editions. 

While conducting a search of his property, police also recovered a notebook that was found to contain a list of churches and coding used in documentation of his crime spree. Perhaps realising he had been undone, Cooper eventually cooperated with law enforcement, and drew a sketch of the 13th-century Lancing corpus, pinpointing Coombes Church on a road map as the site where he stole the cross ornament. 

Shortly thereafter Cooper was initially charged with theft under the Theft Act 1968, as well as fraud, for selling fakes and stolen property online. Later he was charged via the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003 which is reserved for the acquisition of cultural property and makes it an offense to acquire, dispose of, import or export 'tainted' cultural objects, or agree or arrange to do so; and for connected purposes. 

Given his initial cooperation in identifying sites where he had stolen objects, Cooper was released on bail on his own recognizance until September 2015. 

6 May 2016 
Cooper pled guilty to seven charges of theft, two charges of fraud and one charge of dealing in tainted cultural items at Hereford Crown Court. In total, he admitted to 37 thefts from churches throughout England and Wales, 30 of which he asked the Court to be taken into consideration (TIC). 

Cooper was sentenced to three years in prison for dealing in tainted antiquities, for each of seven charges of theft, set to run concurrently. Cooper was also given an additional eight months imprisonment for the two charges of fraud.   In total, he was scheduled to spend just three years and seven months in prison. 

As part of his sentencing, Cooper was also issued with a POCA (Proceeds of Crime Act) order, which means he has to repay the amount of money owed to his duped clients when he is able to do so.

Christopher Cooper's sentencing made West Mercia Police the first UK police force in the country to secure a conviction using the very carefully worded Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003.  Yet he was the only individual charged for his involvement in this criminal activity.  None of the purchasers, who willingly purchased material from him without concern for the object's origins, were ever publically revealed.

On the books, it has been difficult to convict art thieves and their collaborators in the UK of dealing in tainted cultural objects under the special-focused 2003 act. Culprits directly involved in a theft are more often charged using the broader charge of theft. 

Art crime offenses such as handling stolen good, in both cases require proof of dishonestly, a technicality that does not encourage suspect resellers and colluding buyers to ask probing questions as part of their due diligence process when acquiring cultural objects that likely have an illicit pedigree.  This need for plausible deniability serves to disincentivise buyers from probing too deeply, when seeking to establish the legitimacy of a purchase, as accumulating too much evidence, which could be used to establish dishonesty or collusion in a crime and earmark them as known handlers of stolen goods, could hold these individuals accountable, while a simpler "I didn't know" often makes it more difficult for law enforcement to prove coinvolvement, and to make charges stick.

By Lynda Albertson
Sources used for this article.

Cahal Milmo. 2016. ‘How a Gorilla Skull Helped Snare Britain’s Most Prolific Church Thief’. News. INews - JPIMedia Publications Ltd. 13 May 2016. https://inews.co.uk/news/prolific-church-thief-generation-finally-jailed-538372.

Clarke, Paul J. 2016. ‘Minutes Annual Meeting 17th May 2016 – Peterchurch Parish Council’. https://peterchurchparishcouncil.org.uk/minutes-annual-meeting-17th-may-2016/.

Connell, James. 2016. ‘CRIME FILES: Prolific Church Raider Ends up behind Bars’. Malvern Gazette, 10 May 2016. https://www.malverngazette.co.uk/news/18438621.crime-files-prolific-church-raider-ends-behind-bars/.

Herman, Alexander. 2016. ‘Conviction at Last under 2003 Act’. Blog. Institute of Art and Law (blog). 11 May 2016. https://ial.uk.com/1448-2/.

Morris, Steven. 2016. ‘Antique Dealer Who Plundered Churches for Profit Jailed | UK News | The Guardian’. 10 May 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/10/antique-dealer-plundered-churches-for-profit-jailed-christopher-cooper.
West Mercia Police. 2015. ‘West Mercia Police - Images Releases of Church Items Recovered in Operation Icarus’. June 2015. https://www.westmercia.police.uk/OperationIcarus.

Morris, Steven, and Maev Kennedy. 2015. ‘Stolen 15th-Century Torbryan Church Icons Recovered by Police’. The Guardian, 19 May 2015, sec. Art and design. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/19/stolen-15th-century-torbryan-church-icons-recovered-by-police.

Oldham, Jeanette.. 2016. ‘Church Raider Jailed after Stealing Priceless Relics, Including Ancient COFFIN - Birmingham Live’. 6 May 2016. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/church-raider-jailed-after-stealing-11295721.

Oldham, Jeanette. 2016. ‘Crooked Antiques Dealer Jailed for Three Years for Stealing Priceless Relics from Churches’. Coventry Telegraph, 9 May 2016. https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/crooked-antiques-dealer-jailed-three-11305398.

April 3, 2020

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Revisiting the clues of a theft: the case of the theft at the Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza


Sometimes it is good to go back and review old blog posts and provide updates as it is not always possible to track every case of theft when not widely publicised, and sometimes the clues left behind by one set of thieves can be useful in examining the methods of detecting criminal actors in other thefts.  Such is the case of the theft of a small panel painting "Crucifixion and Descent into Limbo" stolen from the Italian city of Faenza.

Vestibule, Maestro of Faenza Sec. XIII
"Crucifixion and descent into limbo"
35x28 cm.  + frame 15 cm., N. inv. 98
Image Credit: Pinacoteca Comunale
di Faenza
Two years ago, on Thursday morning, March 01, 2018, a small panel painting, dating back to the 1200s attributed to the Maestro of Faenza was reported stolen from the Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza.  The oldest museum in the city, the museum's collection was established in 1797, when the municipality purchased the private collection of Giuseppe Zauli, much of which centered on paintings and sculptures from the 13th to the 18th century.

The stolen panel painting, attributed to the Maestro of Faenza, depicts two scenes, the crucifixion of Christ with the cross in the center on the top portion of the panel followed by Christ's descent into limbo with angels and saints on the bottom.  The framed panel, which dates back to the thirteenth century, had been on public display in the Pinacoteca's Hall of the Vestibule, where it was hung just to the left of the Crocefisso del Maestro Francescano in Gallery 6. 

According to a televised report given at the time by Claudio Casadio, the director of the Pinacoteca, the theft was discovered during a morning walkthrough by personnel who discovered the empty frame and backboard mounting discarded in the gallery where the artwork had been hung.  Given the panel painting's small size, the artwork may have been hidden under the thief's winter clothing and snatched at some point during the museum's opening hours though the date of the theft itself and the potential methodology used by the criminal was not defined publicly at the time the city announced the theft.

Recovered Sant'Ambrogio
di Giusto de' Menabuoi
Sometimes in investigative work, silence is golden. 

Fast forward to just a few months later, and the Faenza artwork was recovered, found in the home of an individual in Bologna, hidden in a piece of furniture, along with two other recently stolen paintings: a Sant'Ambrogio di Giusto de' Menabuoi stolen from the Pinacoteca di Bologna just a few days after the Faenza theft and a 17th century Portrait of a Woman stolen in mid March from the Museo Civico di San Domenico in Imola.

Reconstructing the methodology of the thefts lead to the subject being identified. 

At the time of the thefts, police kept some of the clues regarding the thief's modus operandi to themselves.  The thief which targeted the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna, where a work by the artist Giusto de 'Menabuoi had been removed, stole the artwork during the museum's opening hours.  Likewise, the timing of the thefts from the Museo Civico di San Domenico and the Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza had strong similarities, details, investigators preferred not to disclose to protect their investigations.

During their investigations the Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Bologna, in collaboration with the Investigative Unit of the Provincial Command and with the Companies of Faenza and Imola spent time comparing and contrasting the security footage looking for clues and similarities and were subsequently able to identify a single individual in the footage with the same physiognomy, immortalised by CCTV security cameras in the museums and in the nearby civic spaces.

Shortly after the suspect's description was identified, an individual with the same distinct physical profile was identified visiting another museum in the city of  Bologna and acting suspiciously, perhaps either casing the museum for a future theft or with the intent of stealing another painting that very day.  Interrupted from his activity, law enforcement then followed the individual back through the streets of Bologna watching him until he returned to his place of residence.

With the house identified, and with the CCTV footage to back up their hunch, a search warrant was issued by the judicial authorities and the man's house was searched.  Inside, the officers recovered not only the three historic works of art, but most importantly, the incriminating clothing worn during one of the three heists.

All the artworks were returned to their respective institutions in just under two months. Not bad.  Let's hope the recent Van Gogh theft in the Netherlands at the Singer Laren Museum has an equally expedient, and happy, ending.




November 4, 2019

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The cathedral of Oloron-Sainte-Marie was attacked in a smash and grab


In the early morning of November 4th, robbers committed a smash and grab robbery at the Cathedral Sainte-Marie d'Oloron located in the town of Oloron-Sainte-Marie, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.  Awakened to the sounds of a Viking-inspired battering ram, nearby neighbors reported the ruckus to the local gendarmes who responded quickly, but not before the thieves had made their getaway.


Upon arrival, law enforcement discovered that the culprits had used a tree trunk mounted onto a vehicle, to break open a small door to the right of the cathedral's main entrance.  Clergy from the 12th century UNESCO World Heritage Site have stated that the culprits then sawed through metal bars and broke into storage cabinetry, taking only things they could easily and quickly carry such as ciboriums, chalices, and cruets.  The accomplices, believed to be three men, abandoned the car used to break their way into the church, leaving the crime scene in a second vehicle.  

Given the tools required to cut through metal bars and the time it would take to mount something on to an automobile to break through a solid door, it appears that the robbers were well prepared and knew precisely what they wanted to take and how they could gain entry into the historic church.


This morning, Hervé Lucbéreilh, the mayor of Oloron, spoke publicly about the attack. 


By: Vittoria Ricci

October 22, 2019

Tuesday, October 22, 2019 - ,, No comments

Maltese Priest sentenced for the theft of sacred church art


Fr. Deo Debono, the suspended priest from the Provincial Parish church of the Augustinians in Malta, has pled guilty during his arraignment to charges stemming from the theft of sacred art.  Asked by Magistrate Ian Farrugia if he was certain he wanted to enter a plea of guilty, Fr. Debono spoke briefly with his attorney and then affirmed his guilty plea in the theft of paintings and religious objects for services. Magistrate Farrugia then handed down a two-year jail term suspended for four years and ordered Debano to pay €9,500 to the third-party victim of fraud who had purchased the paintings in good faith, unaware that they had been stolen. 

Prior to his arrest, the popular priest told friends about missing paintings at the church and indicated that he suspected workmen from a restoration project.  Debono's story began to unravel when a thurible and an incense boat from the nun's cloister turned up at the Maltese Antiquarian Shop for €3,500 and someone notified the mother superior of the cloistered Augustinian nuns’ convent.  Police then contacted the shop, who had not suspected the priest given his position at the church. 

Augustinian Father Leslie Gatt, has stated that the provincial authorities of the church order  are still considering the way forward regarding the the priest's role in the order following his guilty please. 

September 21, 2019

Saturday, September 21, 2019 - ,, 1 comment

Suspended Maltese parish priest arrested for church-related art thefts

St Augustine Church
Image Credit: NICPMI archive
A Maltese parish priest has been suspended from his duties pending the outcome of an investigation by police into his alleged involvement in the thefts of paintings and ecclesiastical property taken from  the Baroque church of St. Augustine in Valletta where he served. 

The Provincial Parish church of the Augustinians in Malta and and its adjoining convent are listed on the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands (NICPMI), a heritage register which lists the cultural property of Malta under the responsibility of the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage (SCH) which was founded in 2002 to replace Malta's Antiquities Act.   The original church was built between 1571 and 1596 by Gerolamo Cassar, then demolished after the 1693 earthquake and rebuilt between 1765 and 1785.

Some of the stolen items, which included four oil paintings and six etchings, were taken in early February 2019 from the cloister used by the Augustinian nuns, perhaps in a period when areas of the church were undergoing repairs. The thefts were initially identified during an inventory conducted by the church's archivist, Fr Alex Cauchi, who discovered that certain hanging paintings and engravings at the property did not correspond with the inventory of the valuables located in the convent. To hide the criminal activity the thief or thieves had replaced the stolen paintings with other artworks hoping that the switch would go unnoticed, or at least delay any subsequent investigation.

Image Credit: St Augustine Priory in Valletta
In what appears to have been a separate theft, police from the cultural property section traced a thurible, a metal censer suspended from chains in which incense is burned during worship services, as well as an incense holder from the St. Augustine priory to a shop in Valletta.  Questioning the proprietor, the police were led to the parish priest when the owner of the shop reported to them that he had purchased the ecclesiastical items from Fr. Deo Debono for approximately € 2,000. 

Image credit: Deo Debomo
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During his subsequent interrogation, Fr. Debono admitted to his involvement in the theft of paintings and the ecclesiastical silver items which had been taken from the top floor of the Augustinian Convent.  According to police sources cited by the Times of Malta, following a lengthy talk with police, Debono confessed to the crime and law enforcement officers subsequently recovered seven of the church's stolen objects.  As a result, Debano is to be arraigned in court on Monday, September 23, 2019 on formal charges of theft. 

Malta's specialised cultural property police unit was set up in 2005 and has worked on many church related theft cases.  Some of the recent church related cases which they have solved include the theft of a painting by Antonio Falzon dating back to 1861 stolen from the Ta’ Ġieżu Church, Valletta in February 2012, the theft of an antique chalice stolen from the Safi parish church and the theft of an ecclesiastical vase taken from Stella Maris parish church, both in August 2014,  the theft of a silver vase stolen from St Paul’s Church in Valletta in February 2015 and another vase taken from St Publius parish church in Floriana in April 2015.

Open to the public, churches and temples often lack the funds for robust security, making them more vulnerable for heritage crimes, though it is not often that they are tied to clergy and are often crimes of opportunity.  In addition to the thefts from St. Augustine, Malta's Cultural Property Crime Unit is also investigating several other church thefts in Malta including: the theft of ecclesiastical items from the Church in Cospicua and the Zejtun Church, and the theft of two bells from the chapel in Għaxaq. 

March 2, 2018

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Museum Theft: Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza - Faenza, Italy

Vestibule, Maestro of Faenza Sec. XIII
Crucifixion and descent into limbo
panel painting, 35x28 cm.  + frame 15 cm., N. inv. 98
Image Credit: Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza
Discovered missing on Thursday morning, March 01, 2018, a small panel painting, dating back to the 1200s attributed to the Maestro of Faenza has been reported stolen from the Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza.

The oldest Museum in Faenza, established in 1797, when the municipality purchased Giuseppe Zauli's art collection, the Pinacoteca's core collection centers on paintings and sculptures from the 13th to the 18th century. The stolen panel painting, attributed to the Maestro of Faenza, depicts two scenes, the crucifixion of Christ on the top portion of the panel and his descent into limbo on the bottom.  The framed panel had been on public display in the Hall of the Vestibule, where it was hung to the left of the Crocefisso del Maestro Francescano in Gallery 6. 

According to a televised report given by Claudio Casadio, the director of the Pinacoteca, the theft was discovered during a morning walkthrough by personnel on Monday who discovered the empty frame and backboard mounting discarded in the gallery where the artwork had been hung.  


Given the panel painting's small size, the artwork may have been hidden under  the thief's winter clothing at some point during museum opening hours though the date of the theft itself still unclear. 


This is the third theft of sacred art in Italy to have occured in a one week period.  All three thefts have occured in the region of Emilia-Romagna. 

During an early morning religious service at the Chiesa del Suffragio in Rimini a thief or thieves stole the crown and veil of a Madonna, Our Lady of Sorrows,  a statue dating back to the 1700s from the Church’s main nave.  The theft apparently occurred while mass was taking place in a smaller adjoining side chapel. 

An almost identical theft took also was carried out at the Cathedral of Cervia,  in the province of Ravenna, where the crown adorning a statue of Our Lady of Fire also disappeared.

Two of these thefts, the one in Faenza and Cervia both occurred in the province of Ravenna.  The third theft in Rimini occured in a coastal town in the same region (Emilia-Romagna). 

Director Claudio Casadio, the director of the Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza believes the theft from his museum gallery is indisputably a theft to order, given the object is well documented in public records and would be unsellable on the licit art market. If his assumption is correct, and coupled with these other two thefts, the string of the events seem to illustrate an interesting organizational structure to a coordinated series of thefts, likely committed to sustain the black market for religious art.

The theft is being investigated by the Carabinieri. 

September 15, 2017

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Recovery: Not all Ecclesiastical art that is stolen is lost forever



The brisk sales of "Individual A" buying objects from "Individual B"

As a result of the complex operation, twenty people are now under investigation by the Italian authorities for robbery, having received stolen goods, or other related violations of the law.  Those that have been charged, some with no prior police records, include middlemen fences who shopped desirable pieces to collectors of religious art who were apparently disinterested in the conspicuous origins of the ecclesiastical pieces they were purchasing.

Modus Operendi

Working to analyze the methodologies used to commit thefts in places of worship in neighboring municipalities, law enforcement officers saw a pattern evolving. 

Each of the thefts had occurred during daytime hours. 

Most of the incidents did not require any type of forced entry. 

To gain access to the objects the thief or thieves preferred to go about their work during opening hours, when the general public had free access to these religious institutions and where they were less likely to be impeded by burglar alarms or video surveillance systems.

Objects Recovered

The objects identified as recovered during this operation is quite extensive and paints a vivid picture of the frequency of church related thefts throughout Italy and in one case Belgium.

One of the more interesting pieces recovered was a 175 × 125 cm a 16th century Flemish panel painting stolen 37 years ago depicting the twelfth station of the cross.  The painting had been taken from the Treasury of the Collegiate of the Church of Sainte-Waudru in Mons, Belgium on July 2, 1980.   Thankfully the church had an inventory of their artworks so the alterpiece has been matched precisely and will be repatriated.

A white marble sculpture depicting a Madonna and child dating from the beginning of the sixteenth century stolen on July 4, 1997 from the church "Santa Marta" (Confraternity Of San Vitale) in Naples.

An 18th century wooden statue, depicting "San Biagio" stolen between May 10 and May 17, 2015 from the church Lady of the Angels located in Barrea.

An 18th century wooden statue of Saint Nicholas of Bari stolen between May 10 and May 17, 2015 from the church Lady of the Angels located in Barrea.

A 16th century stone statue of St Michael the Archangel,  a sword in silver with an ornate blade and a silver oval shield decorated with words "quis ut Deus" stolen on January 19 2016 from the church of San Michele Arcangelo in Monteroduni.

Fifteen 16th century oil paintings on canvas, mounted to panels depicting "The Mysteries of the Rosary", stolen on December 21, 2016 from the Church of Saint Bartolomeo Apostolo in Cassano Irpino.

Two 17th century wooden statues depicting angels, a 17th century gilded throne used for Eucharistic ceremonies, stolen on November 28, 1998 from La Libera church in Montella.

A 19th century monstrance, also known as an ostensorium or an ostensory, in embossed silver stolen on October 11, 2009 from the church "Santa Cristina" in Formicola.

A wooden statue of the baby Jesus and a silver embossed thurible in which incense is burned during worship services, stolen on March 3, 2016 from the church Saint Peter the Apostle in Sala Consilina.

A late 17th century panel painting depicting a river landscape with animals French stolen on July 16, 1990 at the Rome auction house Antonina dal 1890.

A 19th century painted paper mache statue of baby Jesus stolen on January 5, 2010 from the Cathedral of San Cassiano in Imola.

An 18th century silver monstrance, an 18th century silver reliquary with a stippled glass case, an 18th century metal reliquary, stolen on February 10, 2016 from the church of San Lorenzo located in Castelvetere sul Calore.

An 18th century breastplate with helmet, shield and sword, decorated in gold, which once served as ornamentation to a San Costanzo statue was stolen on January 10, 2016 in a burglary of the parish of "Santa Maria Maggiore" in Itri. NOTE:  Many of the other items stolen during this raid have not been recovered.

Two 19th century gilded wood reliquaries stolen on August 25, 2002 from the church of San Giacomo Apostolo in Gaeta.

Four carved and gilded wooden portapalma (holy) vases  stolen on January 31, 2012 from the church of San Francisco in Gubbio.

A gold plated cup,  a gold plated ciborium with matching lid used for eucharistic ceremonies stolen on January 12, 2016 from the church of Saint Lucia located in Olevano sul Tusciano - Salitto fraction.

A pendulum clock with bronze lyre-shaped inlays stolen on August 25, 1994 from a private residence in Rome.

A 19th century paper mache figurine depicting the Christ child stolen on November 5, 2009 from the church of Saint Augustine in Faenza.

Two 18th century winged putti, stolen on January 5, 2016 from the church of Saints John and Paul in Carinola (Ce) - Casale fraction.

An 18th century oil painting on canvas depicting baby Jesus lying with crown of flowers stolen on August 14, 1994 from a private residence in Lanciano.

An 18th century monstrance with silver and gold metal cross stolen September 29, 2015 from the church Santa Maria dell’orazione located in Pontelatone.

An 18th century chalice embossed and engraved in silver stolen on July 15, 2015 from the church of San Quirico and Julietta located in Serra San Quirico (An).

A 19th century monstrance in embossed silver stolen on January 20, 2016 from the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli located in Contursi Terme..

An 18th century silver reliquary engraved with "nm" stolen on October 4, 2011 from the parish of "Santa Maria Assunta" in Filettino.

February 16, 2017

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Recovered: Here's lookin' at you kid. Stolen in Italy and found in Casablanca.

Madonna with Saints John the Evangelist
and Gregory Healer" (1639)
oil on canvas 293x184.5 cm

Stolen in Modena, Italy on August 10-11, 2014 from the Church of San Vincenzo, the painting "Madonna with Saints John the Evangelist and Gregory Healer" by Guercino has been recovered in Morocco.*

At the time of the theft, if was believed that the art thief had hidden himself away inside the church until everyone had departed after the afternoon Sunday mass. The parish priest of San Vincenzo noticed something was afoot when he passed by the church the following morning and came across the primary door of the church open, with no signs of forced entry. This door was not equipped with an external mechanism for opening so either the thief waited inside after the mass had concluded or he had gained entry through a secondary door at the rear of the church.

When the theft was announced to the public Italian art critic Vittorio Sgarbi criticised the Curia's for its lack of security, especially in light of the numerous petty thefts which had plagued nearby churches in the city recently.  He estimated that the stolen painting, by the an Italian Baroque painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, best known as Guercino, or Il Guercino, could be worth as much as five to six million euros, though he stated clearly that there was no market for stolen, easily identifiable religious works of art.  

Replica of "Madonna with Saints John the Evangelist and Gregory Healer"
inside the Church of San Vincenzo

The city of Modena and the church's priest and patrons were heartbroken. Not only had their painting been in the church since it was constructed, but the church itself stood near the city's courthouse, which is guarded round the clock. How was it that no one noticed anyone exiting the church with a painting under their arm?

This no one could say. 

Flash forward to February 2017 where three fences offer the historic painting to a wealthy businessman in Casablanca, Morocco for a cool 10 million dirhams (€940,000). Recognizing Guercino's masterpiece, the man declined and alerted the police judiciaire du Hay Hassani de Casablanca who then arrested the three suspects. One of the three, possibly the original thief, was a Moroccan immigrant who had lived in Italy for a considerable period of time.  

Here's lookin' at you police judiciaire du Hay Hassani. (**) Bogart, 'Casablanca'

------------------------------------

Update: * The procedure for restitution is now under way between the Moroccan authorities and the Italian Embassy in Morocco.

December 19, 2016

Monday, December 19, 2016 - ,,,,, 1 comment

Who saves the culture of Mesopotamia and the Levant - Part I

In the first of a series, ARCA will be highlighting some of the people on a mission to protect and/or seize back the cultural heritage of Iraq and Syria, from those who seek to profit from or destroy it.

Since the start of the conflict, ARCA has received frequent queries from people concerned about the theft and destruction of sites throughout the Levant.  Often we are asked if anything is doing about the situation. While the form of the question often is posed in the singular format of what is anyone doing specifically about ISIS, ARCA would like to underscore that the problem of looting and destruction is not restricted to one identifiable nemesis operating in conflict zones, although Da'esh has been particularly adept at making a public display of its iconoclasm. 

Today's blog post highlights one forward-thinker in Iraq, who has show what can be done, if people think about a problem in advance of when they are actually faced with one. 

On July 20, 2014 jihadist troops of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant took control of the Monastery of the Martyrs Mar Behnam and Marth Sarah, a monastery located near the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh, 30 km southwest of Mosul, in the Nineveh Plain of Iraq.  The site dates back to the 4th century CE.   

Occupying the site, the militants ejected the Syriac Orthodox monks with nothing more than the clothing on their backs, refusing to allow them to take any of the church's sacred objects.  In fear for their lives, the monastery's guardians were forcefully ejected and walked some ten kilometers before intersecting with Kurdish Peshmerga forces.  

On Thursday, March 19, 2015 ISIS fighters released footage which showed that they had rigged the tombs of Mar Behnam and Mart Sarah with explosives, dramatically detonating the monastery's revered historic shrines.    

Image Credit: Alsumaria News 
While the church at the Monastery of the Martyrs Mar Behnam and Marth Sarah itself was not earmarked for detonation along with its shrines, the historic site would did suffer extensive vandalism.  During its occupation, religious wall decorations were drilled out, and/or defaced. Inscriptions written in Syriac were scraped off the walls, crosses were taken down, and statues knocked to the ground and smashed. Throughout the monastery extensive graffiti was scrawled on practically every available surface.

The statue of Mar Behnam on horseback, dating from the 16th century,
has been completely destroyed
Sadly, as the desecration took place after the dramatic footage of the damages to the Mosul Museum and just before the demolition of Nimrud, the world's press gave the monastery's fate little in the way of press coverage.  Those that research iconoclasm tried to take limited comfort in the knowledge that some of the monastery's important manuscripts, dating back centuries, had been digitized. 

Dr. Lamia al-Gailanim, an associate fellow at the London-based Institute of Archaeology, reminded list-serv members of the Iraqi crisis group that Mosul had twelve Medieval shines with muqarnas domes.  In total, the exquisite remains accounted for half of what the country of Iraq had in terms of this specific style of monumental vaulted architecture.  By 2015, as Da'esh gained more and more territory, all the Mosul-area domed shrines suffered attacks.

On Sunday, November 20, 2016 the Baghdad-backed Babylon Brigades in cooperation with the Iraqi army liberated the Monastery of the Martyrs Mar Behnam and Marth Sarah and the world got its first look at the damages inflicted. It is believed that the militants may have occupied the site as a base of operations and some news reports have said the site was utilized by Da'esh's morality police. Whatever the case, the group's trademark shows throughout the trashed the interior.

As the mixed military force secured the site and the zones surrounding the monastery, the first photos of the extent of the rampage were released on social media.  Little had been spared.  Even the grave marker for Monsignor Francis Djahola, who was a well known part of the monastery religious community until his recent death, had been desecrated.

Father Yousif Sakat
Then, on December 9, 2016, those affiliated with the monastery announced something joyfully unexpected. 

Thanks to the forward thinking of Father Yousif Sakat, over 400 books and manuscripts, some illustrated by hand and dating back 800 years, had been kept safe.  Miraculously, they had been hidden directly under the noses of the militants. 

As a custodian for the monastery’s Medieval collection, Father Sakat knew that if he abandoned the monastery and left the library collection behind, it would be vulnerable to destruction or potential looting.  Sakat watched as the situation grew increasingly tense and as the nearby cities succumbed to the rule of ISIS.  As the militants grew bolder, he noted that individuals had defaced the monastery’s exterior and on occasion, hurled stones at the building to intimidate its occupants. 

Anticipating that the jihadist would eventually take control of the monastery and knowing that they might set fire to the collection, Sakat started to think about what he could do to protect the collection himself.

The fast-thinking priest moved the monastery's most important books and manuscripts into metal drums. He then placed these containers in a discreet area where he hoped they would avoid suspicion.  He then sealed the hiding place shut with a wall of concealing cement.

In December 2016, once the father felt sure the site was no longer at risk of possible recapture, he and a team of workers returned to recover the books from their hidden storage chamber.

Publishing the extraction on Facebook Amjad Hinawi uploaded 49 images of the remarkable books as the room was breached and reopened and the collection retrieved. ARCA has posted a selection of these photos here with the group's permission.


Just as the 72-year-old librarian from Mali successfully saved his own country's collection by stuffing them into millet bags and smuggling them out of harm's way, Father Sakat's ingenuity shows that a lot can be done, even when practically everything else has been lost. 

Having said that, there is a palpable urgency to better preserve these rich and varied historic collections, especially those at smaller religious sites, with little means and funding.  It is no longer cost prohibitive to digitize and catalog literary historic records and vulnerable sites such as these need to consider what potential risks their might be, now or in the future to their original collections.

Consideration before a threat occurs.

Just asking the simple question what are we doing about this (now), followed by what can be done better (before a threat or crisis occurs) in a first step in emergency preparedness.   Even in times of economic hardship or political unrest cultural heritage institutions with limited staff can make a world of difference to an otherwise grim outcome.

Luckily, the collection from the Monastery of the Martyrs Mar Behnam and Marth Sarah was not stored inside the shrines that Da'esh detonated.

Luckily, many of its manuscripts were already digitized.

Luckily, Father Yousif Sakat had the foresight, time and the means to purchase and use the supplies needed to hide his monastery's collection.

But what if any one of those things hadn't happened?

For now, the library of the Monastery of the Martyrs Mar Behnam and Marth Sarah are being stored elsewhere for safekeeping.


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