Carabinieri art police have found
37 stolen masterworks of great value, including a painting
attributed to Guido Reni, at a number of villas on the Amalfi
coast.
The artworks were stolen over the course of two decades and
include paintings and altarpieces stolen from churches in the
Abruzzo city of L'Aquila after they were declared unsafe and
closed in the wake of the 2009 earthquake, investigators with
the Carabinieri art police TPC unit said Tuesday.
The masterworks include the "Cristo prega nell'orto" (Christ
Praying In The Garden) attributed to Guido Reni and five
17th-century altar tablets.
Three people are under investigation.
The probe kicked off in September 2017, Carabinieri police
said, after a number of entrepreneurs were registered as owners
of a vast number of antique artworks of dubious origin.
Prosecutors in the Campania city of Salerno then identified a
group of suspected dealers in stolen art and collectors who were
allegedly willing to buy from them, investigators said.
They added that the 37 artworks seized on Tuesday were all
listed in their data bank of stolen artworks.
In particular, altar tablets from the 1600s and 1700s were
registered as stolen before December 2012 from two churches near
L'Aquila which had been partly destroyed by the quake and were
still closed to the public - San Nicola in Capestrano and San
Giacomo Apostolo in Scoppitto.
Other artworks included two 16th-century altarpieces from the
church of San Rocco in Formia near Latina and the Guido Reni
painting, which was stolen in August 2012 from the home of an
aristocratic family in Naples, investigators said.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
