# Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence > Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - Disputed. Traditionally 1609, during Caravaggio's Sicilian months; argued since 2012 on documentary and technical grounds to be Rome, 1600 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/caravaggio/caravaggio-nativity-with-st-francis-and-st-lawrence/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-25 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - **Date:** Disputed. Traditionally 1609, during Caravaggio's Sicilian months; argued since 2012 on documentary and technical grounds to be Rome, 1600 - **Medium:** Oil on canvas, on a single uncut width of plain-weave canvas of the type Caravaggio used in Rome - **Dimensions:** 268 x 197 cm. The Amici dei Musei Siciliani, who commission a new work at the original size each year, give the altar opening as 267 x 198 cm - **Object type:** Painting - **Period:** Italian, Baroque, about 1600 - **Current location:** Missing. Taken from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo, Palermo, on the night of 17 to 18 October 1969 and not recovered. A full-size re-creation made by Factum Arte hangs in its place above the altar; the painting itself has not been seen by any named witness who has produced it since 1969. - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A large altarpiece by Caravaggio, about 268 by 197 centimetres, painted for a confraternity of merchants in Palermo and cut from its stretcher in their oratory on the night of 17 to 18 October 1969. It has not been seen since. It sits on the FBI's Top Ten Art Crimes list and is routinely called the most wanted painting in the world.Two separate arguments run through its record and neither is closed. The first is art historical: the picture was believed for three centuries to have been painted in Sicily in 1609, in the last year of Caravaggio's life, but a Roman notarial act of 5 April 1600 and the physical evidence of the canvas itself have convinced a number of specialists of a Roman execution in 1600, against an iconographic argument that the altarpiece was made for its Palermo room. The second is criminal: at least six Italian state witnesses have given accounts of what became of the painting, and those accounts contradict each other flatly. It has been described as burned beside a river, eaten by animals in a farm building, displayed at mafia meetings, buried under rubble in an earthquake and cut into four or more pieces and sold in Switzerland.This record separates what is documented from what was said, names who said it and when, and leaves the contradictions standing. A re-creation built by Factum Arte from a 1968 colour transparency and a set of 1951 radiographic plates hangs above the altar today. It is not the painting. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1600** Fabio Nuti, Sienese merchant, acting at Rome `[disputed]` (commission) A notarial act of 5 April 1600, registered in the house of the merchant Alessandro Albani, records Caravaggio undertaking for Fabio Nuti to paint a picture cum figuris for 200 scudi, about 12 palmi high by 7 or 8 wide, which converts to roughly 268 by 156 or 179 centimetres. Delivery was set for mid-June and the balance was paid on 20 November by Albani in Nuti's absence. Nuti supplied a designum, Caravaggio produced an approved sbozzo, and two valuers were named. Michele Cuppone and others identify this as the Palermo altarpiece; no document states the identification in terms, which is why this link is graded disputed rather than documented. - **by 1627-1969** Compagnia di San Francesco, Oratorio di San Lorenzo, Palermo `[documented]` (in situ above the high altar) The picture is recorded in the oratory by Bellori in 1672, and its presence there is fixed earlier by a commission of 1627 to the Palermo painter Paolo Geraci to copy it. The oratory was built in 1569 for a confraternity largely of Genoese merchants, affiliated to the Conventual Franciscans, and the Compagnia di San Francesco met there. The altarpiece hung above the altar at a height of roughly six metres, framed from 1699 onward within Giacomo Serpotta's stucco decoration. - **about 1940-1948** Removed from the oratory for wartime safekeeping `[documented]` (evacuation) The canvas was taken out of the oratory during the Second World War, a removal made awkward by its integration with Serpotta's stucco frame and its angels. The oratory itself was damaged in the air raid of 15 February 1943. On 3 February 1948 the rector Don Filippo Meli wrote to the superintendent Filippo Di Pietro that the painting had been returned to the oratory by Cardinal Ruffini, and asked for skilled staff to rehang it because he would not accept responsibility for damage. - **1951-1952** Lent to Milan, then restored at the Istituto Centrale del Restauro, Rome `[documented]` (exhibition and conservation) The picture travelled to the Caravaggio exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, 21 April to 15 July 1951, and arrived in poor condition because there had been no time to restore it first. Restoration followed at the Istituto Centrale del Restauro in Rome, under a directorate that included Cesare Brandi, and the picture was shipped back from Rome on 14 March 1952. The conservation reports were published by Giovanni Urbani in the Bollettino dell'Istituto Centrale del Restauro in 1951 and by Giovanni Carandente in La Giara in 1952. The large-format black and white glass plate negatives made during that campaign are the best surviving record of the paint surface. - **1969** Removed by theft `[documented]` (theft) Cut from its stretcher in the oratory on the night of 17 to 18 October 1969 and taken away. The FBI records that two thieves entered the oratory and removed the painting from its frame. A carpet was taken from the oratory at the same time and is believed to have been used to roll the canvas. Roberta Lapucci, who examined the abandoned stretcher in September 2009, found canvas remnants around the whole perimeter and recorded that the picture had been cut and partly torn away in haste from the outer edges of the stretcher rather than cleanly inside the frame opening. - **1969-present** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No custody of the painting after October 1969 has been established by any court or by the Antimafia Commission. Multiple state witnesses have given accounts, they contradict each other, and none has produced the object or any part of it. The Commission's 2018 report set out a reconstruction on which the picture left Italy for Switzerland within months and was divided; it also recorded that this rests on testimony and not on physical evidence. The painting remains unrecovered. The two men the testimony places at the centre of any transfer are both dead: Gaetano Badalamenti was arrested in Madrid on 8 April 1984, extradited to the United States that November and died in an American prison in 2004, and the Swiss dealer named to the Commission was already dead when it reported. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - This painting has never been offered at auction and has no sale history. It passed from the artist to a Palermo confraternity and stayed there until it was stolen. Every money figure attached to it in print is either the 1600 commission price of 200 scudi or a modern insurance-style estimate produced for press and law enforcement purposes, most often the FBI's figure of 20 million US dollars. None of those modern figures is a realised price and none carries a published valuation date or method. ## Open questions - Was the painting still on the wall on the evening of 17 October 1969? The last confirmed sighting is at Sunday mass on 12 October, which leaves a six-day window rather than a single night, and the police report on the state of the premises has disappeared from the file. - Is the picture commissioned from Caravaggio by Fabio Nuti on 5 April 1600 this painting? The height matches exactly and the width was left deliberately approximate in the contract, but no document states the identification in terms. - On what date was the Palermo investigation reopened in June 2018 subsequently archived, and on what grounds? Italian reporting refers to the archiving but this record could not retrieve a primary source giving the date or the reasoning. - Does the painting survive in any form? The Antimafia Commission concluded in 2018 that it had not been destroyed, on the strength of witness evidence and a withdrawal, but no fragment has ever been produced and authenticated. - Who is the friar at the right of the composition? Cuppone argues the figure lacks the stigmata, the colouring and the patched habit of Caravaggio's other Franciscans and may be an ordinary friar rather than St Francis, which would make the picture's traditional title a misnomer inherited from a loose reading of Bellori. - Where is the copy formerly owned by Luigi Federzoni? Only a black and white photograph in the Fondazione Longhi is known. - Does an Interpol stolen works of art record exist for this painting, and under what reference? Public access to that database requires registration and no reference was confirmed for this record. - Why does the FBI National Stolen Art File entry, reference 01155, give the maker as Polidoro da Caravaggio, an artist who died about thirty years before Michelangelo Merisi was born? ## Sources - [1] Federal Bureau of Investigation, 'Theft of Caravaggio's Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco', FBI Top Ten Art Crimes. Read in full for this record; the page is behind a bot wall that returns 403 to a plain GET and to a GET with a browser user agent, and was reached through the in-app browser. - [2] Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Stolen Art File, 'Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francisco', reference number 01155. Reached through the in-app browser after a 403 to WebFetch. The entry gives the maker as Polidoro da Caravaggio. - [3] Commissione parlamentare di inchiesta sul fenomeno delle mafie e sulle altre associazioni criminali, anche straniere, 'Il furto della Nativita del Caravaggio', Doc. XXIII n. 44, XVII legislature, approved in the sitting of 21 February 2018, rapporteur Rosy Bindi. - [4] Michele Cuppone, 'La Nativita di Palermo: prima pala d'altare per Caravaggio?', and Roberta Lapucci, 'La Nativita di Palermo del Caravaggio. Nuove considerazioni a partire dalle indagini scientifiche', both in Valori Tattili 9, 2017. Full issue PDF; the technical, documentary and copy material in this record is drawn from these two essays. - [5] Factum Arte, 'Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence', project record of the 2014 to 2015 re-creation, including the account of the 1951 ISCR glass plate negatives, Enzo Brai's 1968 transparency and the unveiling of 12 December 2015. - [6] Michele Cuppone, 'Caravaggio's Nativity: the masterpiece painted in Rome, sent to Palermo, and stolen in 1969', Finestre sull'Arte, for the historiography of the dating dispute from Mauceri and Moir to Calvesi, Mendola, Strinati, Zuccari, Christiansen, Whitfield and Sgarbi. - [7] Michele Cuppone, 'Palermo, art at the time of war. And the stolen Caravaggio that (already) wasn't there', Finestre sull'Arte, 21 March 2018, for the wartime evacuation, the 15 February 1943 bombing, Don Filippo Meli's letter of 3 February 1948, the 1951 Milan exhibition and the return from Rome on 14 March 1952. - [8] Michele Cuppone, 'Audio from Andreotti trial pops up on Caravaggio cut into pieces', Finestre sull'Arte, 11 April 2025, on the publication of the recording of Francesco Marino Mannoia's testimony of 4 November 1996 in the Rebibbia bunker courtroom. - [9] Finestre sull'Arte, 'Caravaggio's Nativity stolen in 1969 possibly torn to pieces: Palermo prosecutor's office reopens investigation', 20 June 2018, naming the deputy prosecutor Marzia Sabella and the prosecutor Roberto Tartaglia. - [10] The Journal of Cultural Heritage Crime, 'Nativita di Caravaggio: una storia semplice? Le intricate vicende investigative del dipinto piu ricercato al mondo', 24 April 2020, for the sequence of witness accounts, the Don Benedetto Rocco material and the criticism of the investigative record. - [11] The Art Newspaper, 'It's 50 years since Caravaggio's Nativity was stolen in Palermo: have the police been chasing red herrings all this time?', 8 October 2019, for the 12 October last sighting, the discovery on 18 October, the Giornale di Sicilia report of 20 October, the missing police report and the August 1969 RAI broadcast. - [12] The Art Newspaper, 'Lost Art: Has Caravaggio's long missing Nativity been found?', for Peter Watson's 1979 undercover work for the Carabinieri, the Swiss line of inquiry and Gaetano Badalamenti's arrest in 1984 and death in 2004. - [13] The Art Newspaper, 'Michelangelo Pistoletto unveils his own version of stolen Caravaggio masterpiece in Sicily', 30 December 2024, for the NEXT project run by the Amici dei Musei Siciliani, its 267 x 198 cm rule and the earlier contributions by Alessandro Bazan, Vanessa Beecroft and Fulvio Di Piazza. - [14] Il Fatto Quotidiano, 'Palermo, il caso del Caravaggio rubato. Per commissione antimafia non e stato distrutto. Bindi: Fu furto di mafia', 28 May 2018, for the presentation of the report in Palermo on 30 May 2018 and Bindi's statements on the Swiss dealer and the division of the canvas. - [15] Il Post, 'Il furto della Nativita di Caravaggio e ancora un mistero', 18 August 2026. The most recent general account located for this record; it records the case as unresolved and the painting as unrecovered. - [16] ARCAblog (Association for Research into Crimes against Art), 'On the 50th anniversary, a tale of two Caravaggio (thefts)', October 2019, for the side door, the two letters to Monsignor Rocco, the 2001 D'Anolfi video released by the Guardian in September 2019 and the comparison with the 1984 Valletta theft. - [17] Arma dei Carabinieri, 'Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale', official organisational page, giving the foundation of the Nucleo Tutela Patrimonio Artistico on 3 May 1969, the elevation to a corps command on 20 September 1971 and the Banca dati dei beni culturali illecitamente sottratti. - [18] Wikipedia, 'Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence'. Tertiary source, used only for the carpet taken from the oratory, the 2005 FBI listing and the summary of Spatuzza's 2009 and Grado's later accounts. Flagged for replacement with the Antimafia Commission report and the Carabinieri file. - [19] Wikipedia, 'Oratory of San Lorenzo'. Tertiary source, used only for the 1569 foundation, the Genoese merchant confraternity, the Conventual Franciscan affiliation and Serpotta's stuccoes of 1699 to 1706. Flagged for replacement with the Palermo superintendency record. - [20] The National Gallery, London, 'Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 - 1610)', artist biography. - [21] Wikipedia, 'Caravaggio'. Tertiary source, used for the biographical chronology in the artist dossier. Flagged for replacement with Baglione and Bellori in scholarly editions and with the documentary corpus published by Maurizio Marini and Sandro Corradini. - [22] Wikipedia, 'Crucifixion of Saint Peter (Caravaggio)'. Tertiary source, used only for the terms of the Cerasi Chapel contract of 24 September 1600 as a period price comparison. Flagged for replacement with the published contract. - [23] Wikimedia Commons API, imageinfo extmetadata query for the two plates used in this record. Both return LicenseShortName 'Public domain'; checked 25 September 2026. - [24] Apollo Magazine, 'The murky mystery of Caravaggio's stolen Palermo Nativity', for the caution about accepting a single witness account and the state of the debate after the Commission's report. - [25] The Journal of Cultural Heritage Crime, 'Caravaggio e quel fascino intramontabile per il mistero della Nativita di Palermo nelle nuove ricerche di Michele Cuppone', 9 September 2021, on the second edition of Cuppone's monograph, the 1943 bombing of the oratory quarter, the Geraci and Federzoni copies and the unpublished 1974 letter to Major Giuseppe Russo of the Carabinieri TPC in Palermo. - [26] Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, 'Ricerca per dati e immagini', the public search front end of the Banca dati dei beni culturali illecitamente sottratti. Reached in the in-app browser because the page is script-rendered and returns no usable text to a plain fetch. It offers search across a selection of the archive by material, technique, object type and subject type, and by uploaded image, with no search by title or artist. - [27] United Press International, 'Reputed Sicilian drug kingpin jailed', 17 November 1984, recording that Gaetano Badalamenti was arrested in Madrid on 8 April 1984 in a raid coordinated by the FBI with Interpol and the Spanish and Italian authorities, and extradited to New York on the night of 15 November 1984. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.