Sgarbi: "Caravaggio's Nativity was not stolen by the Mafia. And it will soon reappear."

On the occasion of the 50th year since the theft of Caravaggio ’s Nativity from the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo (it was the night of October 17-18, 1969), we publish a video that includes a statement by art historian Vittorio Sgarbi on the circumstances of the theft. The statements had not yet been taken into account by the press: the video is taken from a pair of meetings organized by Panorama d’Italia: I tre Caravaggio, on September 27, 2018 (Rome, Church of San Luigi dei Francesi), and Alla scoperta dei tesori nascosti di Palermo, on the following October 10 (Palermo, Real Teatro Santa Cecilia).

According to Sgarbi, the theft of the Nativity is not to be attributed to the Mafia, as has always been believed. The famous art historian and television personality cites anonymous sources that would have reported that the work was not stolen by the Mafia, nor was it destroyed. Moreover, during his speech, Sgarbi argued in favor of the hypothesis that wants the painting executed by Caravaggio in Rome (around 1600) and not in Sicily.

In the Nativity, Sgarbi pointed out during the meeting at the Real Teatro Santa Cecilia, we see a “euphoric Caravaggio, in the height of glory, with a request coming to him from Sicily to send, as he will have sent by ship, this masterpiece in which we see the beautiful St. Lawrence with his dalmatic to recall the oratory, and then the theme of the Nativity with one of the most incredible figures that painting has ever conceived, that is a St. Joseph with short white hair and maybe even tattoos, who looks like David Bowie.”

“I’ve never seen a figure like that,” Sgarbi added, “because you don’t see his face, he turns his back to you, he has his hair cut short, all white but he is definitely not an old man and, taking note that he is supposed to be the figure of St. Joseph, he is among the most original and anomalous of this figure that is normally depicted with a beard, with an old man, according to the categories... then he has, you see, tight pants like pantyhose, you can see it badly because the photograph was not meant to recall Caravaggio’s painting but Serpotta’s stuccos.” Below is the video with the statements on the Nativity (here instead is the link to the full video of the meeting in Rome) and the transcripts of Sgarbi’s statements on the theft of the painting.

"In Syracuse [...] he will do the most terrible, most tragic painting, in which we feel that Evil is stronger than Good, which is the Burial of St. Lucy, a formidable work, from 1608, which I think is the most terrible of Caravaggio’s works. In the meantime, he had painted, from Rome, the work that has a legend, which Andò’s latest film is about, which is the... 1969 theft of the Nativity for the Oratory of San Lorenzo. Of one thing I can give you, as of today, after a meeting I had, a certainty: that Rosy Bindi [until March 22, 2019 President of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, ed.] is always wrong, and that the theft of the Nativity is not due to the Mafia. Not only that, but that the painting exists and may soon reappear. Not stolen by the Mafia: the legendary painting of the Mafia, of Totò Riina, was a lie that the various Commissions perpetrated. I met with a person today who gave me signs that comfort me to think not only that the work was not destroyed, as some turncoat said, but that it was not stolen by the Mafia. This is an affair in any case related to legends and is another sign that even in the thefts, even in the events of the life, of the works of Caravaggio, there is something strange. The most important stolen painting, legendary even in this dimension of Evil, is a painting by Caravaggio; something that loads his human and artistic legend, even with this mafia, criminal mystery, that everyone has been talking about."

Sgarbi: "Caravaggio's Nativity was not stolen by the Mafia. And it will soon reappear."

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