A good – and bad – week for Italy's art police and museum security

News A good – and bad – week for Italy's art police and museum security August 16, 202612:27 PM ET By  Willem Marx A journalist browses the Messina museum website showing a picture of the Early Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina's artwork, multiple pieces of which were stolen from the Sicilian museum on Aug. 15, 2026. Gregorio Borgia/AP hide caption toggle caption Gregorio Borgia/AP The good news came first. In late March, a gang used a tractor to batter down a fence before two masked burglars broke into the Magnani Rocca Foundation, a private museum about 12 miles from the northern Italian city of Parma. They climbed in through a window door, and grabbed three paintings off the wall before disappearing – the whole operation caught on camera, yet completed in under three minutes. The roughly $10 million haul included Cézanne's Still Life with Cherries (worth an estimated $7 million), Renoir's Les Poissons (with an approximate value of $3.5 million) and a Matisse aquatint, Odalisque on the Terrace ($23,000). It was the latest in a run of high-profile thefts that have hit museums and galleries across Europe. Sponsor Message The Sunday Story The secret life of a stolen Van Gogh This past Friday, officials said the paintings had been recovered during some searches that prosecutors had ordered. That investigative effort was led by the Italian police branch known as the carabinieri, working alongside a specialist team focused on cultural heritage protection. Yet authorities gave few further details, and the investigation remains open. In this picture made available by the Italian Carabinieri in Parma, northern Italy, Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, Carabinieri pose near three artworks recovered following a police operation. Italian Carabinieri/AP hide caption toggle caption Italian Carabinieri/AP A new theft Then came the bad news. The following night, a Saturday, was an Italian holiday known as Ferragosto, when much of the country was out celebrating. In the Sicilian c...