Museums in the news – 01

Museum in the news – 01: The theft of the Monna Lisa

The incredible theft of the Mona Lisa portrait, which took place at the beginning of the last century, inspired several spy novels and was retraced in films and dramas.
The charm of the Louvre Museum, combined with the worldwide fame of the painting, inevitably raised curiosity and sparked inspiration.
The theft, which occurred in Paris in August 1911, was the work of Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian immigrant from Varese, who did the heist taking advantage of his profession. Indeed, some months earlier, he had been involved in the construction of a new protective showcase for the masterpiece. The story ended with the man’s arrest in 1913, after he tried to sell the painting to an art collector in Florence.

Mug shot of Vincenzo Peruggia, from Wikimedia Commons