Nativity with St. Francis & St. Lawrence by Caravaggio
Michelangelo Pistoletto, one of the greatest living Italian artists, has unveiled a new work that pays homage to Palermo’s stolen Caravaggio nativity painting.
In March, I wrote a series of short articles about famous art thefts that have gone unsolved. The stories range from Nazi loot to secret tunnels in Paraguay. One of the entries concerned a nativity painting by Michelangelo da Caravaggio stolen from a chapel in Palermo in 1969. Caravaggio created Nativity with Saint Francis & Saint Lawrence sometime in the last decade of his life. The painting shows Mary and Joseph accompanied by, anachronistically, two saints several centuries before their time, all gazing upon the baby Jesus. The figures stand out in front of pitch dark, one of Caravaggio’s hallmarks. Above them, an angel carries a banner reading Gloria in excelsis Deo, or Glory to God in the highest. On October 17, 1969, two men broke into the Oratorio di San Lorenzo, the church in Palermo where the painting hung, and cut the Caravaggio from its frame. They put it on a carpet, rolled it together, and took off. In 2009, specialists valued the painting at around $20 million. Investigators now widely accept that the Sicilian mafia most likely perpetrated the theft. In 2015, the British broadcasting company Sky commissioned a replica of the Caravaggio unveiled on December 12th of that year. However, one Sicilian cultural organization, not satisfied with just having a Caravaggio replica in the church, sponsors an initiative where contemporary artists give us their own take on the painting.
The Amici dei Musei Siciliani, or the Friends of Sicilian Museums Association, hosts an annual exhibition called Next. Every Christmas since 2010, the association invites a new artist to reimagine Michelangelo’s Nativity. The only rule is that the new work must maintain the original painting’s dimensions. According to its organizer, Bernardo Tortorici di Raffadali, the initiative’s purpose is to provide the church and the city of Palermo with “an act of ethical compensation” in place of the painting that has been missing for fifty-five years. Previous artists include Emilio Isgrò and Francisco Bosoletti. For the fifteenth edition, the Italian arte povera artist Michelangelo Pistoletto gives us his own reinterpretation of the work called Annuciazione Terza Paradiso. Pistoletto erases everything from the original painting except the angel, replacing everything with a mirror. Pistoletto has used mirrors and other reflective surfaces in his work since 1961. Instead of a banner, the angel is holding a symbol. According to Pistoletto, this is a reimagination of the infinity symbol and represents the Third Paradise, a conception of harmony between the natural and artificial worlds. Pistoletto commented, “This vision invites collective responsibility, transforming conflict into a new horizon of civilization, where creation prevails over destruction.” The Pistoletto was unveiled in the church on Christmas Eve, a fitting time given the original painting’s subject.
Pistoletto’s work will remain behind the church’s altar until January 8th. It will then be relocated to a different part of the church, remaining on exhibition until the anniversary of the theft on October 17, 2025.