Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Every year, millions of people
Speaker 1: flocked to the Louver in Paris and elbow each other
Speaker 1: for a glimpse at Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, the Mona Lisa.
Speaker 1: The gallery where it's house, hosts as many as thirty
Speaker 1: thousand visitors every single day, many of whom specifically visit
Speaker 1: the museum to see her. You could say she's popular,
Speaker 1: but there was a time when the Mona Lisa was
Speaker 1: not well known, if you can imagine that, and it
Speaker 1: took a man named Vincenzo Perugia to launch her into stardom.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria tru Marquis and I'm Holly Fry.
Speaker 1: The Mona Lisa has been described as quote the best known,
Speaker 1: the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about,
Speaker 1: the most parodied work of art in the world end quote.
Speaker 1: She has been immortalized in everything from Andy Warhol's pop
Speaker 1: art to Dan Brown's best selling novel The Da Vinci Code.
Speaker 1: Dais artist Martial Duchamp once caused a stir when he
Speaker 1: painted a mustache on a cheap reproduction of the piece.
Speaker 1: Italian master Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa
Speaker 1: in Florence, Italy in fifteen o three or possibly fifteen
Speaker 1: o four, and probably completed it uh well. No one
Speaker 1: is certain when exactly he completed it. Some historians consider
Speaker 1: the painting to have been completed in about three or
Speaker 1: four years, although others suggest that it could have been
Speaker 1: finished any time up to the artist's death in fifteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: It was then when the King of France, Francois the
Speaker 1: First purchased the work to hang in Fontainebleau, said to
Speaker 1: have been his favorite palace place. Fontainebleau was its home
Speaker 1: for more than a hundred years, until King Louis the
Speaker 1: fourteenth took the painting to the newly built Palace of Versailles.
Speaker 1: After the French Revolution, the Mona Lisa found itself hanging
Speaker 1: in Napoleon Bonaparte's bedroom in the Tuilerie for a few
Speaker 1: years before it was finally installed in its permanent home
Speaker 1: at the Louver and that is where you'll find her
Speaker 1: still today. She is hung in the Salle des Eta,
Speaker 1: that is room seven one one. The portrait and really
Speaker 1: it's so well known we probably don't even really need
Speaker 1: to describe any of this, but just real quick, imagine her.
Speaker 1: She is a woman dressed in Florentine fashion and pictured
Speaker 1: seated in a mountainous landscape. The work is a half
Speaker 1: length portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel, and
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it in person, it's actually quite
Speaker 1: smaller than many people imagine. It's roughly two and a
Speaker 1: half by two ft or seventy seven by fifty three centimeters.
Speaker 1: The piece is a just just a beautiful example of
Speaker 1: this auto technique, which basically translates from Italian English as
Speaker 1: to Vanish like smoke. So this style creates subtle transitions
Speaker 1: between light and shadow and between colors. But it's the
Speaker 1: subject's enigmatic expression, though, which has given the portrait universal fame.
Speaker 1: So the Mona Lisa, as Maria just alluded to, is
Speaker 1: known for her half smile, but Da Vinci's subject has
Speaker 1: been talked about and debated for centuries. One of the
Speaker 1: most common things said about the piece is that the
Speaker 1: subject eyes follow you. But we can put that one
Speaker 1: to rest because in a study published in the journal Perception,
Speaker 1: German scholars found that she is actually looking Dona. I
Speaker 1: know it's suspenseful to the right. Anything else that you
Speaker 1: perceive is just your imagination. Some people claim that there
Speaker 1: is a hidden code in her eyes. Others are certain
Speaker 1: that the work is actually a portrait of da Vinci himself,
Speaker 1: an artist's self portrait. Today experts are pretty darn sure
Speaker 1: that Italian noblewoman Lisa Gerardini, that was the wife of
Speaker 1: Italian merchant Francesco del Giocondo, is the face of the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa. We know the Mona Lisa as an iconic
Speaker 1: piece of artwork of the Renaissance, and it's considered nearly
Speaker 1: impossible to value because it's simply priceless. Really, it was
Speaker 1: assessed before it once traveled from Paris to to Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. And then New York City for a special
Speaker 1: exhibition held between December of nineteen sixty two and March
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty three, and it was at that time
Speaker 1: when it entered the Guinness Book of Records for being
Speaker 1: given the highest known insurance evaluation for a painting, a
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars, and that has helped make it the
Speaker 1: target of theft and vandalism. On several occasions. The Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa has been spray painted. It's been mugged, most recently caked.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six alone, two people tried to vandalize
Speaker 1: the work on separate occasions. In the face of so
Speaker 1: much potential damage, Spanish artist Salvador Dolli once attributed to
Speaker 1: the painting a quote power unique in all art history
Speaker 1: to provoke the most violent and different kinds of aggressions.
Speaker 1: The first attack on the Mona Lisa was in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six during an exhibition in Montaubon, France, when a
Speaker 1: visitor through acid at the work. At the end of
Speaker 1: December that same year, a man named Hugo Unyaga Viegas
Speaker 1: threw a rock at the painting. He said at the
Speaker 1: time quote, I had a stone in my pocket and
Speaker 1: suddenly the idea to throw it came to mind. Viega's
Speaker 1: rock did not do permanent damage to the painting, although
Speaker 1: it did manage to damage a small area of the paint.
Speaker 1: The Mona Lisa was repaired by experts with the French State.
Speaker 1: It was back on exhibit just days after the incident,
Speaker 1: but after such a year the decision was made to
Speaker 1: place the piece behind protective glass. The Mona Lisa has
Speaker 1: actually rarely ever left the louver Or France, but in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies it won on a tour that included
Speaker 1: exhibition in Japan. In nineteen seventy four, nearly one and
Speaker 1: a half million people reportedly saw the painting when it
Speaker 1: traveled to the National Museum in Tokyo, and in April,
Speaker 1: during the tour, twenty five year old Tomiko Yosu tried
Speaker 1: to spray the work with red paint. Unlike the in
Speaker 1: the Moment idea to throw a random rock at the masterpiece,
Speaker 1: her attack was politically motivated. In the days leading up
Speaker 1: to the show's opening, disability activists had raised a red
Speaker 1: flag about the exhibit, stating that in refusing access to
Speaker 1: those who needed assistance, the National Museum was discriminating against
Speaker 1: those living with disability. Yonezu, in an effort to call
Speaker 1: attention to this, hit the Mona Lisa Well. She hit
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa's protective glass to be clear, with an
Speaker 1: estimated twenty to thirty drops of spray paint. She was
Speaker 1: detained and in nive. She was convicted of a misdemeanor
Speaker 1: and fined three thousand yen her brazen vandalism, Though did
Speaker 1: affect a change. Tokyo's National Museum announced it would set
Speaker 1: aside a day when those with disabilities could exclusively visit
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa. And then things went pretty quietly for
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa for a little while until two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: more than thirty years after that spray paint incident. In
Speaker 1: August that year, the painting was again attacked, this time
Speaker 1: with a teacup. The scene that day went like this.
Speaker 1: Approaching the painting, a woman reached into her purse, grabbed
Speaker 1: the now infamous mug and threw it directly at the
Speaker 1: face of Mona Lisa. The mug shattered, but the artwork
Speaker 1: remained undisturbed. Remember it's under that protective glass. According to
Speaker 1: a spokesperson for the Louver at the time, the woman
Speaker 1: had been upset over being denied French citizenship. The museum's
Speaker 1: statement to The New York Times also included that quote
Speaker 1: viewing was only disturbed the time it took to pick
Speaker 1: up the pieces. And then there was a very recent
Speaker 1: attack at Loop in May a man in his thirties
Speaker 1: disguised as an elderly woman in a wheelchair through what
Speaker 1: museum officials later described as a concealed partistory at the painting. Again,
Speaker 1: the protective glass installed prevented any damage to the piece.
Speaker 1: It not the Mona Lisa was smeared with pastry cream.
Speaker 1: Museum officials suggested that the protester himself, not living with
Speaker 1: the disability, faking it, chose to use the wheelchair to
Speaker 1: exploit their reduced mobility policy, which allowed him closer access
Speaker 1: to the painting. The vandal before being apprehended through rose
Speaker 1: petals on the ground while shouting think of the earth.
Speaker 1: There are people who are destroying the earth. Think about it.
Speaker 1: Artists tell you think of the earth. That's why I
Speaker 1: did this. But it was actually the theft of this
Speaker 1: painting in nineteen eleven. Yes, I'm actual theft, not vandalism,
Speaker 1: that turned the Mona Lisa into one of the world's
Speaker 1: most instantly recognizable images. That's right. And with that though,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor. But when we return, we will introduce the
Speaker 1: man who made the Mona Lisa a household name, Vincenzo Peruggia.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's tell the story about the
Speaker 1: day the Mona Lisa disappeared. The louver was closed from
Speaker 1: maintenance on August nineteen eleven, the day the Mona Lisa
Speaker 1: went missing. That morning, a small mustachioed Italian man named
Speaker 1: Vincenzo Peruggia, dressed in the standard uniform of a Parisian handyman,
Speaker 1: which was a white worker's smock, entered the museum, probably
Speaker 1: maybe with other maintenance workers, and made his way to
Speaker 1: the gallery where the Mona Lisa hung. He removed the
Speaker 1: painting from its two hundred pound framed enclosure, tucking the
Speaker 1: small panel under his smock. He then, well, he then
Speaker 1: just kind of walked out into the streets of Paris.
Speaker 1: There is a version of this high story that hasn't
Speaker 1: added detail, though, and it adds a little bit of
Speaker 1: a dramatic twist, and it goes like this. Perugia hid
Speaker 1: in a storage room overnight, planning to escape with the
Speaker 1: painting in the morning, but when he tried to get out,
Speaker 1: he discovered the door was locked. He removed the door knob,
Speaker 1: but it still would not open until that is a
Speaker 1: helpful plumber passing by in the hallway lent a hand
Speaker 1: and opened the door for him. We have no idea
Speaker 1: if this detail actually happened, but it's a fun story.
Speaker 1: Door knob or no door knob, there is more no
Speaker 1: thing about the theft was discovered until a wealthy museum
Speaker 1: patron and visiting artist, a man named Louis Berud, arrived
Speaker 1: to sketch works in the Salon care That was the
Speaker 1: gallery where the Mona Lisa was at the time exhibited,
Speaker 1: but where he expected to see da Vinci's masterpiece, he
Speaker 1: found only blank wall space. Of course, he reported it
Speaker 1: immediately right well so, because the Louver routinely removed works
Speaker 1: from its galleries for photographing, it actually wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary to notice that a painting was
Speaker 1: missing and to think nothing of its absence. And several
Speaker 1: hours went by before the man notified the guards. We
Speaker 1: did read that from the steel to the missing painting
Speaker 1: report or whatever that may be technically called. As many
Speaker 1: as possibly twenty six hours may have passed before anyone
Speaker 1: noticed that the Mona Lisa had left the building. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until later that evening, after the paintings frame was
Speaker 1: discovered in the service stairwell, that museum officials announced the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa had been stolen. That frame, incidentally, had been
Speaker 1: donated by Countess de Bienne just two years prior and
Speaker 1: had not been damaged during the heist, stated museum officials, quote,
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa is gone. Thus far, we haven't a
Speaker 1: clue as to who might have committed the crime. Curator
Speaker 1: George Beneditte told the press at the time, and we're
Speaker 1: paraphrasing him here, that only a practical joker would steal
Speaker 1: such a prized painting because it would just be too
Speaker 1: difficult to fence. And the director of National Museums at
Speaker 1: the time, a man named Jean Philamole, who was vacationing
Speaker 1: when the Mona Lisa was stolen, stated in reaction to
Speaker 1: the news that it must have been simply misplaced, adding quote,
Speaker 1: you might as well pretend that one could steal the
Speaker 1: towers of Notre Dame. Francis Gendarme had an alternate theory.
Speaker 1: They believed that the thief would demand ransom within forty
Speaker 1: eight hours. Two days passed, though, and nobody came forward.
Speaker 1: The entire country of France was stunned at this fact,
Speaker 1: and there were many theories circulating as to what could
Speaker 1: have become of the Mona Lisa. One popular Parisian magazine
Speaker 1: wondered what what audacious criminal? What mystifier? What maniac collector?
Speaker 1: What insane lover has committed this subduction? What insane lover
Speaker 1: has committed this? I want that on my tumb stone.
Speaker 1: What insane loverbduction? I mean I want to be cremated.
Speaker 1: But still you can marker. I can still say something.
Speaker 1: Right there you go. In addition to the frame found
Speaker 1: in the stairwell, some reports suggest that later in the investigation,
Speaker 1: guards spoke with a plumber who were called helping a
Speaker 1: man who was locked in a stairwell, So that kind
Speaker 1: of leads into that little detail we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: But back to that frame, there was a single thumb
Speaker 1: print found on it. Harris police inspector Alphonse Bertillon was
Speaker 1: the first to recognize the value of fingerprints in law enforcement,
Speaker 1: and as an aside, he's also credited with developing the
Speaker 1: mug shot. He had, it's reported, hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: prints on file, too many to check against the one
Speaker 1: found on the frame, so instead he fingerprinted all two
Speaker 1: hundred fifty seven employees who had been working at the
Speaker 1: museum that day. Perugia had briefly worked for a firm
Speaker 1: that cut glass for the Louver, although we did find
Speaker 1: some reports suggesting that he had actually just been an
Speaker 1: employee of the museum, but that's a little unclear, and
Speaker 1: we don't know if he was fingerprinted. Detectives dusted for
Speaker 1: fingerprints and questioned witnesses. Cars and pedestrians were stopped and
Speaker 1: searched at checkpoints throughout the city, and officials circulated those
Speaker 1: wanted style posters of the Mona Lisa's face. The New
Speaker 1: York Times wrote that quote, a great number of citizens
Speaker 1: have turned amateur Sherlock Holmes is and continued to advance
Speaker 1: most extraordinary theories. Some thought a forgery ring thieved it,
Speaker 1: and we're selling knockoffs to wealthy but naive art patrons.
Speaker 1: Others argued that the man behind the theft had to
Speaker 1: be banking magnet JP Morgan, who many believed to be
Speaker 1: a robber baron, and who many believed had surely commissioned
Speaker 1: this heist for his own private art collection. One popular
Speaker 1: rumor in Paris specifically was that Germans had stolen it.
Speaker 1: There were many, many, many theories here. When French police
Speaker 1: distributed six thousand, five hundred leaflets about the theft and
Speaker 1: announced a reward for forty Francs for its return. People
Speaker 1: started to turn on each other, Neighbors informed on neighbors.
Speaker 1: There were stories of alleged sightings of the painting in
Speaker 1: places as far away as Russia and Japan, despite no
Speaker 1: good leads on the Mona Lisa's whereabouts. As an aside,
Speaker 1: the museum did, in the process recover some other stolen
Speaker 1: loot that was unrelated to this particular theme. There you go.
Speaker 1: I really love that we got something. I didn't even
Speaker 1: know this was missing. This was a big, big story
Speaker 1: for news media, and their coverage of the heist helped
Speaker 1: turn the work into a notable and recognizable piece of art. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: the face of the Mona Lisa was everywhere as a
Speaker 1: modern audience, It's got hard to grasp that. When The
Speaker 1: Washington Post first reported about the theft and appraised the
Speaker 1: paintings value at five million dollars, the newspaper mistakenly ran
Speaker 1: a picture of the Mona Vanna, which is a distly
Speaker 1: different piece of art. The Mona Vanna is a nude
Speaker 1: charcoal sketch that some art historians theorized I and She
Speaker 1: might have drawn in preparation for painting the Mona Lisa,
Speaker 1: but maybe not either way, it's definitely not the Mona Lisa,
Speaker 1: and so that's I mean, that's actually really a great
Speaker 1: example of how unknown this work was before it was stolen.
Speaker 1: Noah Charney, art history professor, author of the Thefts of
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa and founder of the Association for Research
Speaker 1: into Crimes Against Art, has said, quote, if a different
Speaker 1: one of Leonardo's works had been stolen, then that would
Speaker 1: have been the most famous work in the world, not
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa. He added, quote, there was nothing that
Speaker 1: really distinguished it per se other than it was a
Speaker 1: very good work by a very famous artist. That's until
Speaker 1: it was stolen. The theft is what really skyrocketed its
Speaker 1: appeal and made it a household name. At first, a
Speaker 1: color reproduction was hung in the Mona Lisa's place at
Speaker 1: the Louver. Then, in December nineteen twelve, Raphael's portrait of
Speaker 1: Baldisser Castiglione was exhibited there. The investigation remained open, but
Speaker 1: after two years there were very few leads. On September seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, avant garde writer Guillaume at Pollonier, who had
Speaker 1: once called for the Louver to be burned down, was
Speaker 1: arrested and held on suspicion of theft of the Mona Lisa.
Speaker 1: A Polonaire became a suspect after one of two things happened.
Speaker 1: His chapter in this story is told two different ways. One,
Speaker 1: authorities were able to link missing figurine stolen from the
Speaker 1: Louver to one of his former assistants, Gary Pierre, who
Speaker 1: was also a small time thief, and Pierre spilled the
Speaker 1: beans on the artist. Alternatively, there is a version that
Speaker 1: suggests that a Pollonaire and Pierre had a falling out
Speaker 1: and Pire told the Paris Journal newspaper that he had
Speaker 1: information on the Mona Lisa to information that included a Pollinaire.
Speaker 1: Regardless of which version of the story you hear, the
Speaker 1: outcome was the same. A Pollinaire was exonerated of all
Speaker 1: charges and he was released, But during his time in custody,
Speaker 1: he did implicate his friend, Spanish artist Pablo Picasso in
Speaker 1: the theft. Picasso had purchased Iberian bronze age statue stolen
Speaker 1: by Pierre. That's a detail we can't be sure if
Speaker 1: Picasso knew about or not, but he had purchased those
Speaker 1: to use his models in his paintings and you can
Speaker 1: see them in his work. Les Demoiselle d'Avignon is a
Speaker 1: piece that's considered to have ushered in the style of Cubism,
Speaker 1: and those models were used for it. After questioning, though
Speaker 1: authorities dismissed Picasso as a suspect, they did seem to
Speaker 1: talk to everyone, and they even interviewed Perugia twice. In
Speaker 1: his apartment at five Rue Delpita, Saint Luis Us, three
Speaker 1: miles from the museum. They interviewed him before concluding that
Speaker 1: he could not be their man. His alibi, well, we
Speaker 1: came across too in the research. Although the first one
Speaker 1: is much more commonly reported. That first one is that
Speaker 1: Perusia may have claimed that he had been working at
Speaker 1: a different location the day of the theft. The second
Speaker 1: one suggests that Perusia may have replied that he learned
Speaker 1: of the theft from reading about it in the newspapers,
Speaker 1: and that the reason he was late to work that
Speaker 1: Monday in August was that he had drunk too much
Speaker 1: the night before and overslept. Regardless, we know he did it.
Speaker 1: What authorities did not know though, at the time, was
Speaker 1: that they were actually in the presence of the mona
Speaker 1: Lisa during those interviews. It was stashed in the false
Speaker 1: bottom of a trunk in Perusia's apartment while they were
Speaker 1: there questioning him. So with the Mona Lisa case, at
Speaker 1: this point, the authorities were completely stuck. We are going
Speaker 1: to take a break for a word from our sponsor now,
Speaker 1: and when we're back, we will talk about the letter
Speaker 1: that Perugia sent to a dealer in Florence and the
Speaker 1: reply he received. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: Perugia's mistakes and his subsequent arrest. The image of the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa was, as we have said, suddenly splashed across
Speaker 1: front pages of newspapers around the world. Sixty detectives seek
Speaker 1: stolen Mona Lisa. French public indignant, reported The New York Times.
Speaker 1: Said author and historian Charnee Quote. The museum had over
Speaker 1: four hundred rooms, but only two guards and even fewer
Speaker 1: on duty overnight. There were basically no alarms in play.
Speaker 1: It was under secure, but to be fair, most museums
Speaker 1: were at that time. The theft, he continued, Quote, launched
Speaker 1: the painting into becoming a household name for people who
Speaker 1: had never been to Europe and had no interest in art,
Speaker 1: and it's really just continued from there. In fact, for
Speaker 1: the very first time, there were accused of people outside
Speaker 1: the louver. Among them were famous names, including writers Franz
Speaker 1: Kafka and Max Broade, each waiting for their chance to
Speaker 1: see the empty space where the painting should have been
Speaker 1: on the wall. As the theft gained more and more
Speaker 1: press attention, both within France and internationally, Perusia kept the
Speaker 1: painting hidden and it just sat there in his apartment.
Speaker 1: According to Christopher Marinello of Art Recovery International, which is
Speaker 1: a company that provides art recovery services to museums as
Speaker 1: well as to private collectors, Perusia's behavior of stealing and
Speaker 1: hiding a painting for years is actually a pretty common
Speaker 1: thing among art thieves, he says. Quote. A typical art
Speaker 1: thief tries to get money. When they can't hide it,
Speaker 1: they store it until they can get money. As soon
Speaker 1: as art is stolen, it decreases in value. This happened
Speaker 1: even in the eighteen hundreds when there was no Internet. Today,
Speaker 1: everyone knows about every single art theft, whether a turn
Speaker 1: of the century Matisse painting or a seven foot garden no.
Speaker 1: The Prefect of the Police had several theories, and was
Speaker 1: quoted in a nineteen twelve article in The New York
Speaker 1: Times as saying, the thieves, I am inclined to think
Speaker 1: there were more than one, got away with it all right.
Speaker 1: So far nothing is known of their identity and whereabouts.
Speaker 1: I am certain that the motive was not a political one.
Speaker 1: But maybe it is a case of sabotage brought about
Speaker 1: by discontent among Louver employees. Possibly, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: the theft was committed by a maniac. A more serious
Speaker 1: possibility is that La Giaconda was stolen by someone who
Speaker 1: ends to make a monetary profit by blackmailing the government. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just in case you didn't recognize. La Gia Conde is
Speaker 1: another name for the Mona Lisa, based on the fact
Speaker 1: that it is probably Lisa Giacondo in the work. So yes.
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to everyone at this point, everyone but Perugia, of course,
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa was actually still in Paris, and then
Speaker 1: Perugia made an attempt to sell it to a man
Speaker 1: named Alfredo Gary, a Florentine antique dealer who frequently advertised
Speaker 1: for fine art in several Italian newspapers. On November Gary
Speaker 1: received a letter postmark from Paris regarding the potential sale
Speaker 1: of the Mona Lisa, details of which would be agreed
Speaker 1: upon during a personal meaning. That letter was signed Leonardo,
Speaker 1: but the sale backfired when the dealer called on Giovanni Pogi,
Speaker 1: director of the Ofizi Galleries in Florence, for an appraisal,
Speaker 1: and set up a meeting with Perugia and poe Gi
Speaker 1: in Milan. The men gathered in Perugia's room at the
Speaker 1: Tripoli Italian Hotel, where he removed it from its red
Speaker 1: silk wrapping. Gary later wrote, quote, we placed it on
Speaker 1: the bed, and to our astonished eyes, the divine Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa appeared intact and marvelously preserved. Pogi confirmed that yes,
Speaker 1: this was the original work, and he convinced Perugia to
Speaker 1: leave it with him at the Effizi for safekeeping. Perugia
Speaker 1: demanded one hundred thousand dollars in expenses, and they agreed
Speaker 1: to both that and to his selling price half a
Speaker 1: million lira. We did, however, see that asking price alternately
Speaker 1: referenced as half a million francs. In any case, he
Speaker 1: wanted a lot of money for it, although not anywhere
Speaker 1: close to what it was worth regardless. Though the men
Speaker 1: did not go to the bank. They instead contacted the
Speaker 1: Italian police, and on December twel Mona Lisa was recovered
Speaker 1: in Florence, Italy. The painting was returned to Paris, but
Speaker 1: first was exhibited at the Uffizi through the end of
Speaker 1: the year. It's estimated that at least add people visited
Speaker 1: the painting in the first two days after it was
Speaker 1: reinstalled in that empty spot on the wall. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: give you context for how many people that is, if
Speaker 1: you have ever been to the louver on a standard
Speaker 1: day we quitted earlier, that's about thirty thou people wall
Speaker 1: to wall, elbow to elbow, like it is a tight situation,
Speaker 1: so double that number. Complete madness. This was huge. These
Speaker 1: are he was a very big deal that it was back.
Speaker 1: Vincenzo Perugia was arrested in his hotel room. His courtroom
Speaker 1: appearance has been described as quote an unhinged or if
Speaker 1: you look at the colorful Italian phrase in the court
Speaker 1: reporting quote that translates literally as outside like a balcony.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a saying that suggests that things are
Speaker 1: just absolutely madness. In court, Perugia shouted and he interrupted witnesses.
Speaker 1: He argued with prosecutors, he argued with his own lawyer.
Speaker 1: He first stated that he worked alone on the heist,
Speaker 1: but then he recanted and implicated two of his friends,
Speaker 1: neither of whom it turned out, were actually involved. Wherever
Speaker 1: his story meandered, though he always maintained this one thing,
Speaker 1: his theft of the Mona Lisa was an act of patriotism.
Speaker 1: Perugia claimed that he had taken the painting out of
Speaker 1: a patriotic duty to bring it home to Italy. He
Speaker 1: was convinced that the painting had been stolen during battle
Speaker 1: between France and Italy centuries earlier, and he did not
Speaker 1: seem to know that it had actually been purchased by
Speaker 1: the King of France. Barren Square author and historian Noah
Speaker 1: Charney has said a Prussia quote, he seemed to have
Speaker 1: genuinely been convinced he would be heralded as a national hero,
Speaker 1: and genuinely dismayed to discover he wasn't. He was maybe
Speaker 1: a few pickles short of a sandwich, but not a lunatic.
Speaker 1: Peruggia did have other convictions. He was known to be
Speaker 1: hot headed, and he had prior arrests for robbery. But
Speaker 1: there was also a kind of weirdly suspicious thing that
Speaker 1: authorities found in his apartment. He had begun keeping a
Speaker 1: journal of sorts that included a list of art collectors.
Speaker 1: Curiously enough, and that's the evidence that led most people
Speaker 1: to assume that he had actually done this highest out
Speaker 1: of one simple thing, greed and not patriotism. On June,
Speaker 1: Peruggio was sentenced to one year and fifteen days in
Speaker 1: prison by Florentine courts, a sentence it was reported that
Speaker 1: was considered to be pretty light. We actually read a
Speaker 1: lot of conflicting sentence information for him, but it seems
Speaker 1: that he served anywhere between six months to that one
Speaker 1: year in fifteen days of the Mona Lisa, Perugia has said, quote,
Speaker 1: I fell in love with her. Years after the paintings return.
Speaker 1: Newspapers called the disappearance of the Mona Lisa quote the
Speaker 1: most colossal theft of modern times, and also stated, matter
Speaker 1: of factly that Perugia gave the painting its world fame.
Speaker 1: The Mona Lisa continues to be owned by the government
Speaker 1: of France and it is on permanent display behind that
Speaker 1: bulletproof protective glass. Of course, in the Louver in Paris.
Speaker 1: Occasionally there are requests for the Mona Lisa to travel
Speaker 1: as a special exhibit, including one request in from the
Speaker 1: Italian city of Florence, which would have returned the Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa to her origins, at least temporarily. That request was denied.
Speaker 1: The a FP news agency owned by the French government,
Speaker 1: published that quote. The request may have stirred up bad
Speaker 1: memories among French officials, given that it was stolen by
Speaker 1: an Italian. Ah, mom MAA, let's talk about our hight hooch,
Speaker 1: the highst hooge for this one took me a couple
Speaker 1: of tries. I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes you just want
Speaker 1: to experiment a little anyway. But here's what I was
Speaker 1: trying to think about, because the thing that I was
Speaker 1: trying to honor in all of this is that this
Speaker 1: is a painting that's very important to two different national identities.
Speaker 1: France considers this their baby in some ways. We talked
Speaker 1: in the episode about how upset the French public was
Speaker 1: that she had been stolen and a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: thousand people in two days being just a crush of humans,
Speaker 1: and like, again, if you have ever been to the
Speaker 1: Loop and seen the Mona Lisa. You don't even really
Speaker 1: get close to her. Not only is she behind glass,
Speaker 1: she is at a distance that is a lot of
Speaker 1: people to see her at a pretty significant remove. Similarly,
Speaker 1: I know that Perusia would not have been the only
Speaker 1: person to consider her important to Italy. They may not
Speaker 1: have the misunderstanding he had about the nature of her
Speaker 1: arrival in France. But she's obviously also very important to
Speaker 1: Italian culture because of Da Vinci in Florentine culture in
Speaker 1: particular too. I wanted to come up with a drink
Speaker 1: that kind of criss crossed these things. But the drink
Speaker 1: I'm coming up with is not really a French drink,
Speaker 1: although it is called the French seventy and it was
Speaker 1: invented in Paris. It was invented by a Scottish guy
Speaker 1: during World War One. Drink it's a reference to artillery
Speaker 1: blast if you've ever had a French seventy five. It
Speaker 1: is one of those one of those beverages I have
Speaker 1: gotten very fond of in recent years, which is really
Speaker 1: just gin and champagne with a little simple syrup and lemon.
Speaker 1: I never so I'm curious about. Yeah, it is my
Speaker 1: go to brunch drink. You keep your mimosa. I'm drinking French.
Speaker 1: It's because of the gin. I just never would have
Speaker 1: ordered it. Now that I'm coming along with jin, perhaps
Speaker 1: I will. And then, of course I wanted to think
Speaker 1: about that and italianify it. That's a word today, but
Speaker 1: I did it in a very different way. So first
Speaker 1: of all, this is a drink I'm calling She's in
Speaker 1: the trunk. You're right, it is a name that I love.
Speaker 1: I thought it would make you giggle. We're not doing gin, though,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna use some ingredients that are a little
Speaker 1: more Italian in origin. The first one not necessarily, but
Speaker 1: it's common throughout the world. We're going to do an
Speaker 1: ounce of dark rum, then an ounce of muretto, which
Speaker 1: is of course very Italian. I think after this you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna want to add just a splash of simple
Speaker 1: syrup or jaw you use or jah. You're doubling down
Speaker 1: on that almond flavor, and that's very much one to taste,
Speaker 1: because some people don't like much sugar in a drink
Speaker 1: like this, and some people do. But then you're gonna
Speaker 1: top it. You can mix those together in a shaker
Speaker 1: if you want, or you can stir them together, but
Speaker 1: you want, I recommend stirring with ice because you want
Speaker 1: them to be cold, because you're going to pour them
Speaker 1: into a chill champagne glass and top it with four
Speaker 1: to five ounces of prosecco. This is one of those things.
Speaker 1: It's interesting if you look up in like bartending guides French,
Speaker 1: they're considered to be not really that strong a drink,
Speaker 1: even though it's all alcohol. Champagne's a b V is
Speaker 1: low enough. However, if you're like me, you can drink
Speaker 1: spirits all day long, but champagne really will hit you hards. Heaven.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the deal is there. It's not
Speaker 1: like I'm drinking it faster like people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: because you drink it faster, because there's I'm like no,
Speaker 1: even if I'm just sipping, I don't. I'm champagne sensitive
Speaker 1: for some reason, or prosecco, any of the sparklings get me,
Speaker 1: the bubbles do something anyway, this will hit you hard
Speaker 1: if you're not careful. So to do the mock tail version,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do an ounce of I would do like
Speaker 1: a dark spiced tea, like a team meant for a
Speaker 1: chie or something in lieu of that dark rum, because
Speaker 1: dark rum is often spiced as well. You're gonna do
Speaker 1: probably half an ounce to an ounce if you really
Speaker 1: like sweet of an orja syrup, so you do get
Speaker 1: that almond flavor that you would get from amaretto, and
Speaker 1: then you're just gonna do like a light ginger ale
Speaker 1: on top of that, and you'll still have a nice
Speaker 1: amber colored As we are heading into autumn in the
Speaker 1: northern Hemisphere, it's a pretty good autumn sip that isn't
Speaker 1: all of the like traditional flavors. If you're one of
Speaker 1: those people that's I'm burned out on pumpkin and apple things,
Speaker 1: I don't understand that, but I do know that people
Speaker 1: get that happens from time to time. That yummy almond
Speaker 1: flavor with the prosecco feels very much like a cheerful
Speaker 1: version of fall to me. It's so that is she's
Speaker 1: in the trunk. In the trunk, which sounds a little
Speaker 1: dark if you don't know, it's about a piece of art,
Speaker 1: but we all know. So it's fine. If you try it,
Speaker 1: you drink respond stably and you're careful, and if you
Speaker 1: try the mocktail. You will find it refreshing and delightful
Speaker 1: as well. Those bubbles don't get you. You can drink
Speaker 1: of all day. It might make you burp, worst the
Speaker 1: worst that can happen, the worst that can happen, you'll burp.
Speaker 1: Have a yummy a drink once I'll wake another. We
Speaker 1: are so thankful that you have spent this time with
Speaker 1: us today talking about the Mona Lisa, who was a fascinator,
Speaker 1: that's for sure, and we cannot wait to see you
Speaker 1: right back here next week where we will have another
Speaker 1: artist and similar beverages. Criminalia is a production of Shonda
Speaker 1: land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more
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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows,