Four Renaissance paintings attributed to the 15th-century Sicilian master Antonello da Messina have been stolen from the MuMe Regional Interdisciplinary Museum in Messina, a port city on the northeastern tip of Sicily, during the night of Saturday 15 August. Italy's Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli described the stolen panels as being of "extraordinary value" to the country's cultural heritage, with art experts estimating their worth at between 70 and 80 million euros.

The thieves cut through metal perimeter fencing along Viale Annunziata, forced open a side entrance, and bypassed alarm and security systems — despite guards being on site — to reach the gallery halls. They dismantled all five surviving tempera-on-wood panels of the San Gregorio Polyptych, a 1473 altarpiece commissioned for the monastery of Santa Maria and the only major surviving work by Antonello to have remained in his hometown. Three of those panels were taken; the other two were found abandoned against a wall near the museum grounds. The thieves also broke open an armoured glass display case to remove a small double-sided devotional panel, dated to 1465–1474, depicting the Virgin and Child with a Franciscan Monk on one side and Christ in Pietà on the other.

The heist was timed, whether by design or opportunity, to coincide with Ferragosto — the feast of the Assumption of Mary and the peak of Italy's summer holiday season. In Messina, the celebration centres on the traditional Vara procession, which drew large crowds and police presence to the city centre at the time of the theft, around 10pm local time. Local culture councillor Enzo Caruso called it "a real movie-style heist," and noted that international attention to Antonello's work had intensified since Italy's Culture Ministry purchased his devotional painting Ecce Homo for $14.9 million earlier this year.

Antonello da Messina, born in Sicily around 1430, is considered one of the defining masters of the early Italian Renaissance, credited with introducing Flemish oil-painting techniques to Italy. Because so few of his works survive, each remaining piece is regarded as an irreplaceable cultural treasure. Museum director Marisa Mercurio said the community was "devastated," adding: "These are not merely works by Antonello da Messina — they are works that hold considerable significance in terms of our identity."

Investigators are working on the initial theory that the paintings were stolen to order for the black market. Art crime analyst Lynda Albertson, CEO of the ARCA research association, cautioned that while stealing the works may have been relatively straightforward, selling them would be another matter entirely. "Stealing an Antonello may be far easier than selling one," she told La Repubblica, explaining that high-profile stolen art rarely reaches the open market, instead circulating within criminal networks as collateral for other illicit activity. The theft follows a separate case in Parma, northern Italy, where police recently recovered three stolen works by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse worth around €10 million — a reminder of what experts describe as a growing wave of museum heists across Europe.