Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of My Heart Radio. Yo,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dotton, you know what's ridiculous? Sure, I do think
Speaker 1: it's always ridiculous food crossover. Damn it today in messed
Speaker 1: up the crossovers. All right, this is ridiculous. Paula Deene
Speaker 1: sells butter flavored lip bomb. Okay, good done, yes for
Speaker 1: good for I got it. I got the whole picture. Uh,
Speaker 1: first of all, is she still a thing? I mean,
Speaker 1: I suppose she's still a human being. Yeah, and she's
Speaker 1: still a butter salesman. I didn't think that she had
Speaker 1: anything going on, but she's got a website with a store.
Speaker 1: A lot of people didn't care about the whole flat
Speaker 1: I guess anyway, So she makes lip bomb and it's
Speaker 1: in butter flavor. It's also banana cream and key lime.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about butter lip bombs. I think we
Speaker 1: should back up to key lime. I think you're really
Speaker 1: missing the market. But it's like, okay, but because that's
Speaker 1: what you want for Christmas, key line, Poladen lit bone,
Speaker 1: this is the most depressing thing to So yeah, she um,
Speaker 1: she has these and they look really budget and they're
Speaker 1: for sale in her online store for two dollars and
Speaker 1: forty nine cents us. Um. I'm not even gonna look
Speaker 1: at what else she sells her because I really care.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. So somewhere there in China there's
Speaker 1: a factory making polodine butter chapstick. Did you know what
Speaker 1: the what the tagline is? Oh no, there's a tagline,
Speaker 1: put a little South in your mouth he has. With
Speaker 1: the flap that she got, she lost her whole empire. Four.
Speaker 1: That's funny. It's a little South in your mouth. She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm leaning into it. Yeah, I gotta sell maga
Speaker 1: butter crowd just just sucking on a butter flavored lip bomb. Now,
Speaker 1: so there you go. Good, good for her. Let live
Speaker 1: your life. That's ridiculous, itous, ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I mean
Speaker 1: it polydene butter products. So I mean, right there, I've
Speaker 1: got one for you. He got a moment, Yes, I did,
Speaker 1: not going anywhere. Okay. This is a story of a patriot,
Speaker 1: cause I know you love patriots, and it's a proud,
Speaker 1: blue collar anti hero, a man who wanted to right
Speaker 1: the wrongs of Napoleon for stealing a great treasure from
Speaker 1: the land of his birth and so are blue collar
Speaker 1: anti hero. He felt he was compelled to act. He
Speaker 1: had to for his country and their pride, and you know,
Speaker 1: he was a patriot after all. So one day he
Speaker 1: went to the Louver and he stole the Mona Lisa.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, this is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd
Speaker 1: and outrageous capers, heights and cons. It's always murder free
Speaker 1: and ridiculous. All right, Elizabeth, Yes, what do you know
Speaker 1: about the painting the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Ven It's
Speaker 1: a painting you see, it's in the Louver, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I've never seen it in person. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've been to the Loop. It was a long story
Speaker 1: and very complicated how I was toward it at every turn,
Speaker 1: trying to get in there. You actually did try to
Speaker 1: get yeah, but it just didn't work out anyway. But
Speaker 1: from what I understand, it's first smaller than people realize. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've I've been to the Louver. I've seen it in personally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just a world traveler, Elizabeth, A jet center. If
Speaker 1: you will be jealous, It's okay. I'm used to it, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw It's it's tiny, I mean not tiny, like
Speaker 1: a postage stamp tiny, but it's like kids art project
Speaker 1: size and painted on like basically a table topic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've seen photos from that from the room in
Speaker 1: the gallery where it's just like constantly such a huge
Speaker 1: crowd of people around that. I got really lucky that
Speaker 1: when I was there it was not like that when
Speaker 1: I were Yeah, did you know? Yeah? No, wait, that
Speaker 1: was jay z I. Sometimes I'm like, am I see me?
Speaker 1: I don't know where do we begin? Where do we end?
Speaker 1: I don't know. We both agree on Beyonce. So anyway,
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa, it's as you said, it's a small painting.
Speaker 1: It's usually behind a glass box. It's on the wall
Speaker 1: and surrounded by people and such that it's you know,
Speaker 1: if you're going to even try to see it, you're
Speaker 1: going to be seeing it through hands holding up phones
Speaker 1: essentially these days now the painting able to tell you
Speaker 1: a little bit about it. It's known as Joconda, the
Speaker 1: most famous painting in the world. Also, it's considered the
Speaker 1: most the foremost masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance era of artwork.
Speaker 1: Other than saying Michelangelo's ceiling the Sistine Chapel, like you
Speaker 1: can think of it as a painting that captured the
Speaker 1: creation of a new way of looking because he had
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa do a three quarter post and up
Speaker 1: till then, all portraiture had been either straight on or
Speaker 1: at a slightly different angle, but nobody had thought to
Speaker 1: do a three quarter so you can see them and
Speaker 1: like the pose is like a head and bust basically,
Speaker 1: but the way that she's turned at the angle, it
Speaker 1: gives a dimensionality and a life to it. It's just
Speaker 1: an amazing advancement. And now all portraits pretty much used
Speaker 1: that post. That he basically changed how we look at
Speaker 1: a person in a photograph or a painting. So that's
Speaker 1: what you're not a da Vinci. He's just one of
Speaker 1: the people that, in small ways he's still impact how
Speaker 1: we do what we do. He's one of my favorite people.
Speaker 1: I think you know that I talked about him. He's
Speaker 1: I own a bunch of his books. I would constantly
Speaker 1: go back and reread his journals, and as I said,
Speaker 1: he taught me to to to see. He also taught
Speaker 1: me to think scientifically and to think beautifully scientifically. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of the guy right now. Do you
Speaker 1: know the painting. Well, if I just kind of casually reference, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: hey man, I took art history in college, right, I
Speaker 1: forget you cultured. I took it because I failed calculus
Speaker 1: twice and I thought I have to get my g
Speaker 1: p A up. I like art, and I took it
Speaker 1: and I didn't realize I sat down with this, I
Speaker 1: have to memorize so much. Oh yeah, and a lot
Speaker 1: of in foreign languages and things like faulivism. You're like faulivism.
Speaker 1: It was awesome, though. I'm glad I did it. Oh definitely.
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you, studying art as a gift
Speaker 1: to give you, so I'm kind of an expert in art.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to say. And you understand the background
Speaker 1: of the Mona Lisa, What do you like about it?
Speaker 1: The do you know that in the background, if you
Speaker 1: look at both sides of the Mona Lisa, the two
Speaker 1: sides don't match. It's like two different paintings. I love
Speaker 1: that because it makes it like she's this border land
Speaker 1: between these two different worlds, and it's very casual, you
Speaker 1: don't really think about it. And then obviously there's this
Speaker 1: spumato technique that makes most smoky and mysterious, and then
Speaker 1: there's all the like the falling contours and textures of
Speaker 1: her hair, the water like it's just a lot showing
Speaker 1: off with what he can do well in to convey that,
Speaker 1: the mystery and her facial expression. Yes, and then there
Speaker 1: was of course the great mystery, what is she thinking?
Speaker 1: Now Some people have also said that it's a self
Speaker 1: portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, and if you look at
Speaker 1: some of the drawings of him, it does favor favor
Speaker 1: as they say, No, I didn't know this, but the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa, it being the most famous painting in the
Speaker 1: world and it being revered. That wasn't always the case,
Speaker 1: and that was as recently as last century. That wasn't
Speaker 1: the case. Like in in nineteen ten, the Mona Lisa
Speaker 1: was considered a lesser masterpiece, and then nineteen twelve the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa was suddenly considered an undisputed masterpiece and the
Speaker 1: most famous painting in the world. So what happened in
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven they changed everything for the Mona Lisa. It
Speaker 1: was stolen, Yeah, that's that's what It vastly improved its
Speaker 1: value and suddenly it changed not only how we think
Speaker 1: about like art in terms of like our desire for it,
Speaker 1: but how we valued art. It really did change the
Speaker 1: like the reason why a Basquat painting now is so
Speaker 1: expensive is because the Mona Lisa was stolen essentially, Okay,
Speaker 1: so Mona Lisa his other painting that later Ard than
Speaker 1: She started in fifteen o three, and it took him
Speaker 1: a long time to paint it. He worked on it
Speaker 1: over his career. It took him for sixteen years. He
Speaker 1: was working on until fifteen nineteen. The woman who it
Speaker 1: is is a woman named Lisa gardj Ardini, and she
Speaker 1: was a noble woman. She was a wife of a
Speaker 1: noble woman. Rather and uh, you know she for a
Speaker 1: long time people, as I said, people thought maybe with Leonardo,
Speaker 1: they've now pretty much to side. It is definitely her now.
Speaker 1: There have been a lot of other mysteries about the painting.
Speaker 1: We'll get into those in a little bit now. In
Speaker 1: things were basically leaning towards World War One, and national
Speaker 1: pride was very big in Europe. Do you do you
Speaker 1: We've talked about World War One a little bit and
Speaker 1: you're you're familiar with it. It wasn't just like, oh,
Speaker 1: who shot the arch Duke? There was a lot of
Speaker 1: things that made to World War One. Right now, by
Speaker 1: the way, as I told you before, we have our
Speaker 1: patriot or blue collar hero, and I said that Napoleon
Speaker 1: stole the Mona Lisa. That's according to this guy. Turns
Speaker 1: out he didn't. Actually, the Mona Lisa was not a
Speaker 1: spoil of war. The real story is Leonardo brought it
Speaker 1: with him when he moved to France towards the end
Speaker 1: of his life. When his patron then became set the
Speaker 1: Duke of Milan, he becomes the King Francis, the first
Speaker 1: of France. So this painting when he dies becomes the
Speaker 1: property of the king, and then it stays in the
Speaker 1: court for centuries and survives all the tumult of the
Speaker 1: French court until boom ba boom, the French Revolution. The
Speaker 1: French Revolution comes along, and we all know about that.
Speaker 1: Stuff gets Mona Lisa becomes the property of the French Republic,
Speaker 1: and the painting is rescued from the palace where it
Speaker 1: has lived in cloister and nobody ever gets to see it.
Speaker 1: And now it is brought out and rehoused in the
Speaker 1: new Louver Room museum for all the people of France
Speaker 1: to see. They love it. Boom. Then comes Napoleon. Napoleon's like,
Speaker 1: I want it too, so he goes, he takes it,
Speaker 1: and he goes, I'm gonna put this on my bedroom wall,
Speaker 1: and he literally goes takes the Mona Lisa and it
Speaker 1: hangs it on his bedroom wall and there it stays
Speaker 1: until Napoleon is removed to Elba, and then after his confiscation,
Speaker 1: it is once again returned to the people of the
Speaker 1: Republic of France and put back on display in the louver.
Speaker 1: But the Napoleon part of the story is why our
Speaker 1: Italian blue collar anti hero decided to steal the Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa in the first place. Basically, he got it wrong,
Speaker 1: but he was like, I'm willing to bet on that, okay,
Speaker 1: So armed dude, our Italian blue collar anti hero. His
Speaker 1: name is Vincenzo Perugia. He was a glass man, a glazier,
Speaker 1: you know, a glacier like So he was hired by
Speaker 1: the Loop to help fix the glass cases of the museum.
Speaker 1: The Mona Lisa, and like many of the other masterpieces,
Speaker 1: were all behind glass cases and there have been a
Speaker 1: threat against the Mona Lisa. So the Louve hired this
Speaker 1: company to make glass cases and to basically, you know,
Speaker 1: check on all the glass that they could to protect
Speaker 1: these paintings. And they unwittingly brought a fox in the head.
Speaker 1: And then exactly so they hire in arm and Vincenzo
Speaker 1: and he becomes the inside man as a glacier. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven, at the time of the heist, Vincenzo
Speaker 1: Prugia he was twenty nine years old. He lived in
Speaker 1: Paris with his two brothers. His mama had named her
Speaker 1: boys Vincenzo and or Lancelotti's name, so the three brothers
Speaker 1: lived in the tenth Arondesement, which at the time was
Speaker 1: an Italian enclave mostly and uh, when he came time
Speaker 1: to steal the Mona Lisa, he's like, Vincenzo, I got
Speaker 1: to bring it into my brother. So he's like, guys,
Speaker 1: I got an idea, and so they come up with
Speaker 1: his plan and it comes a family affair. If you will, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: I want you to be able to imagine this cast.
Speaker 1: So Vincenzo Puga he was, as I've read about him,
Speaker 1: not a tall man. He stood about five ft three.
Speaker 1: Now imagine his brothers probably did too. And he also
Speaker 1: apparently had a very short fuse to match his very
Speaker 1: short stature. He was hot tempered. He wants to stopped
Speaker 1: talking to his own brother over a one franc debt.
Speaker 1: He's just like very stubborn guy. Basically, I kind of
Speaker 1: pictured him as like the evil super Mario brother. Warrio
Speaker 1: and his brothers are like these two Luigi's okay, so
Speaker 1: his brothers, as I told your name, those two had
Speaker 1: a nickname for Vincenzo. They called him pass or meg Leoi.
Speaker 1: Pardon my Italian, but it translates as nut or the madman.
Speaker 1: So knew who like He's warrior? Okay, yeah, Now this
Speaker 1: guy our warrior. He's the one who has to keep
Speaker 1: his cool and level head while he attempts to steal
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa with his brothers and a family affair. Okay, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: I'd like to close your eyes and to picture it.
Speaker 1: It's Sunday night in Paris. The streets are swollen with
Speaker 1: people out enjoying a warm late summer night. It's August one.
Speaker 1: You are out among them, but not for long. When
Speaker 1: no one is looking, you shoot a crossbow bolt high
Speaker 1: into the air. It strikes its target, It lodges into
Speaker 1: the stony parapet of the castle wall of the Lura Plaza,
Speaker 1: and you grab the rope with gloved hands and with
Speaker 1: a graceful walk up the wall. Soon enough you are
Speaker 1: high above the city of lights. That sounds about right
Speaker 1: for me. Obviously, you are not there for the trains,
Speaker 1: and you're you're working. You got other plans on this trip.
Speaker 1: You are a cat burglar, just like Carrie Grant or
Speaker 1: Danny Ocean and the boys. Your office for tonight is
Speaker 1: the rooftop of the louver. Now you wait a few
Speaker 1: hours for the moment to strike. Sometime around three am,
Speaker 1: you decide the museum has fallen, still silent. It's like
Speaker 1: a crypt down there. You're like, I can get work now.
Speaker 1: You've already removed a glass panel, You've tied off a
Speaker 1: rope system and you all you have left to do
Speaker 1: now is to lower yourself successfully into museum, which you do.
Speaker 1: You're good at this, yea, and with a flourish you
Speaker 1: land like a cat. You spy your target waiting for you,
Speaker 1: your prize if you will. The Italian Renaissance painting Death
Speaker 1: of the Virgin by Michelangelo Maurici de Caravaggio, the master
Speaker 1: work is Strike Love Caravaggio, by the way, But you're
Speaker 1: not shopping on this trip. You were hired to steal
Speaker 1: this work for a former nun, one who became an
Speaker 1: heiress to a Colorado gold strike fortune. She wants the
Speaker 1: painting of Mary for her new home in the Rockies,
Speaker 1: and you're like, bet so, you're only happy to oblige her,
Speaker 1: and you tiptoe over to your prize. When you spot
Speaker 1: these three Italian handy men, they're not quiet, they're bumbling,
Speaker 1: they're arguing. They look like super Mario brothers, right, the
Speaker 1: three year a dressed at overalls and work smocks, blue
Speaker 1: denim jackets, denim hats. It's long past closing time, it's
Speaker 1: like three four the morning. At this point. There should
Speaker 1: be no one in the louver but you in the
Speaker 1: security guards who were pretty much asleep at this point,
Speaker 1: and of course the artwork. Now you're holding very still,
Speaker 1: hiding in a pool of shadow as you watch Warrio
Speaker 1: and Luigi's as they cross in the in the the salon,
Speaker 1: and now you are in the salon care it's the
Speaker 1: home to all the Italian Renaissance masterpieces, which happens to
Speaker 1: be where the Mona Lisa is also kept. The three
Speaker 1: Italian super Mario brothers, they are headed right towards you,
Speaker 1: and you're like standing there and just a little pool
Speaker 1: of shadow. You don't know what to do. The three
Speaker 1: are silently arguing with their hands back and forth right there,
Speaker 1: like it looks like a very heated hand talking argument.
Speaker 1: Now you don't know what to do, so you just
Speaker 1: remain still. And the three super Mario brothers they walk
Speaker 1: right up to the Mona Lisa. They look around furtively,
Speaker 1: they nod at one another, and then quiet as church mice,
Speaker 1: they unshackle the painting from the security bracing that's on
Speaker 1: the wall. Then they remove the protective glass case. The
Speaker 1: three super Mario brothers, they're thieves just like you. You
Speaker 1: watch them work. It's professional curiosity, yeah exactly. You're also
Speaker 1: worried that if they bungle this, you're gonna get caught
Speaker 1: because they make Yeah, I still gotta steel, but I
Speaker 1: gotta I'm working here people, exactly, and I have a
Speaker 1: very specific style. And also they are taking a little
Speaker 1: tiny two foot painting that's on the boards of poplar.
Speaker 1: You're after a twelve foot by eight foot canvas painting. Hell, yeah,
Speaker 1: figuring how to roll this up without crankling or ruining it.
Speaker 1: You got issues, right, you don't need this there after
Speaker 1: some satchel sized paint. What is this amateur hour? But
Speaker 1: the brothers they work fast to act as lookouts as
Speaker 1: Vincenza removes the Mona Lisa from the protective glass case.
Speaker 1: Once he frees it from the glass box, he tucks
Speaker 1: the wood panels underneath his works mock. He signals to
Speaker 1: the other Italian handyman. It's like they they're ready, and
Speaker 1: there they get the signal and boom. You watch him go.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, maybe I can still get to work.
Speaker 1: You're a little jealous, though, because as I told you,
Speaker 1: they got that little tiny thing and you still got
Speaker 1: this eight twelve foot painting. You gotta get down. What
Speaker 1: you don't see is on the way out, there's a
Speaker 1: reason not to be so jealous, because on the way
Speaker 1: out of the louver, Vincenzo runs into trouble. The brothers
Speaker 1: split up to make it out on their own, and
Speaker 1: Vincenzo He's picked a carefully selected escape route, and he
Speaker 1: finds it it's blocked by a locked door. He's stuck
Speaker 1: in the museum. He doesn't know what to do. He
Speaker 1: brought a pass key from the swiped at work. He
Speaker 1: thought this will be great, but he brought the wrong
Speaker 1: key match the door. He didn't have time to test.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know what he's doing, like, what can I do?
Speaker 1: What can I do? All of a sudden, he started
Speaker 1: hearing footsteps. The footsteps get louder. They're approaching, They're coming
Speaker 1: towards him. Luckily, our warrior. He's a fast thinker, so
Speaker 1: he pulls a screwdriver from his work pocket and his overalls,
Speaker 1: and he removes the door knob really quickly. Just two
Speaker 1: screws pops it off. The light of dawn is now
Speaker 1: coloring the windows, so he knows he needs to get
Speaker 1: out pretty much right now. Other workers will soon start
Speaker 1: arriving for their Monday shift. The footsteps are drawing closer
Speaker 1: and closer. He takes a breath, and he calms his nerves,
Speaker 1: and then he sees the footsteps are not a churity guard,
Speaker 1: but in fact they are a plumber who is early
Speaker 1: to work, a funnel plumber. Vincenzo indicates the door handle
Speaker 1: and holds it up and shows that it's broken. He
Speaker 1: lifts it to show the plumber the plumber season. He's like, hey,
Speaker 1: what are you? I get you? So the fellow blue
Speaker 1: collar worker, he helpfully opens the door from his side
Speaker 1: and lets him out. And so now Vincenzo is free,
Speaker 1: and he and the Mona Lisa escape into the streets.
Speaker 1: It's tucked under his work smock. Nobody sees a. Vincenzo
Speaker 1: steps out of the Louver into the morning air, onto
Speaker 1: the morning streets. The early risers are greeting the day
Speaker 1: others are headed to work. He looks at the beautiful
Speaker 1: Tuiliers gardens opposite the Louver plaza. He spots his brothers.
Speaker 1: They made it out too, and then a whistle he
Speaker 1: catches their attention. The three lineup. They make it to
Speaker 1: a train station, buy tickets, and disappear. They have stolen
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa. Yes, and after this short little break, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: I'll be back to tell you what happened to my
Speaker 1: man Vinnie, Mitchelle and Lan. After this little break, I
Speaker 1: can't wait, and we're bACC Elizabeth. Hey, let's get back
Speaker 1: to the Louver, a place you haven't been. But just
Speaker 1: try to imagine it, all right, if you can believe it.
Speaker 1: The next day, there's a blank spot where the Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa was hanging day before. But the part you won't
Speaker 1: be able to believe is no one notices what. No
Speaker 1: one notices the Mona Lisa is missing. There's just this
Speaker 1: empty space on the wall. A whole day passes. This
Speaker 1: wealthy dilettante artists a cat named Louis Barrow, right. He
Speaker 1: likes to come in and paint in the louver and
Speaker 1: he sits there by Jichan, by the Mona Lisa, and
Speaker 1: he he gets busy with his like little canvases and
Speaker 1: does his own little like yeah, like what was it
Speaker 1: on plane? Fresh plane? That's usually outside, I know, but
Speaker 1: he does it indoor. He does like a non plane
Speaker 1: air a different. So louis sitting there with all set up,
Speaker 1: and he's bummed, miffed because the Mona Lisa is not there.
Speaker 1: It's just a blank space. So he's like so of course,
Speaker 1: being a wealthy dills and he has to speak to
Speaker 1: the manager of the loop like no, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: But he goes out to a guard and he's like, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm Louis Borrow. I'm always you know, you may recognize
Speaker 1: me that I don't know. The Mona Lisa is missing.
Speaker 1: Do do you have good words? And now the guard
Speaker 1: tells him the photographers, right, and he's like, no, Now
Speaker 1: what this means is the photographers they've been taking the
Speaker 1: masterpieces up onto the roof of the loop and taking
Speaker 1: photos of them with these cameras that they developed to
Speaker 1: do really large format, so they're up there like on
Speaker 1: sticks and the you know, the old wooden box cameras,
Speaker 1: and they're taking them, these amazing paintings up into the
Speaker 1: fresh light and taking photos of him. He thinks, oh,
Speaker 1: that must be what it is. But louis the dilettant.
Speaker 1: He's like, but wold you please go and ask the
Speaker 1: photographers when it will be back right. Security guys like,
Speaker 1: are you for real? There are so many paintings to paint,
Speaker 1: like find another something else, all right? But he's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: I must have the Mona Lisa. Right. So the guard
Speaker 1: goes He's like, all right, per whatever. He goes off,
Speaker 1: bacles off, he talks to somebody, or pretends to. He
Speaker 1: comes back and he's like, look, buddy, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to tell you zip painting. He is not with
Speaker 1: the photographers, so I cannot tell you when it will
Speaker 1: be back and I it's like literally the dilettan artists.
Speaker 1: He's like, may, we may wait, but my friend, if
Speaker 1: the photographers don't have it and it is not here
Speaker 1: on the wall, well then where is it? And the
Speaker 1: guard he starts putting two to two together. He gets
Speaker 1: to cat and he's like, oh man, so fully six
Speaker 1: hours after the Mona Lisa has been stolen, they realize
Speaker 1: it's been stolen, so all day at work, so the
Speaker 1: gargos tells his boss, look, we've got a little problem.
Speaker 1: So the curator of the loop is this man named
Speaker 1: Georges Benedett. Now news breaks because the Mona Lisa is
Speaker 1: still like it's a big deal. May not be the
Speaker 1: most famous painting in the world, but still it's a
Speaker 1: national treasure and people are like art crying, right, so
Speaker 1: they just cannot believe that. George, he has to go
Speaker 1: before the French press and he's like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: this is nothing. It's only a practical joker with dare
Speaker 1: to deprive the French people of their national treasure, right,
Speaker 1: And he's like, what idiot could possibly think they could
Speaker 1: sell offense the Mona Lisa. I mean, come on now, right,
Speaker 1: that's that's a good point. Now the cops are like,
Speaker 1: we don't think it is a practical joke. Are the
Speaker 1: gendarmes They believe it is a ransom job. So there
Speaker 1: they think soon someone will step forward and go, I
Speaker 1: will give you back your national treasure for this a
Speaker 1: large amount of francs. Al Right, that's the idea that
Speaker 1: they're going for. They're like, so the gendarmes, they tell
Speaker 1: the press, it's just like, look, it would be like
Speaker 1: maybe two days tops, right, right, two days, and so
Speaker 1: the newspapers are like, okay, two days, two days past,
Speaker 1: nobody steps forward, nobody asked for a ransom to go
Speaker 1: back to the gendarmes, what's is going on with the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa, they're like, maybe three days. So the French police, though,
Speaker 1: they have very few clues to go off of, so
Speaker 1: they're stalling because they got nothing right, but they do
Speaker 1: have Alphonse Elizabeth you know who al phones bout Tolan
Speaker 1: is Okay, I didn't either. But this guy, he's apparently
Speaker 1: the father of the bug shot and a camera love
Speaker 1: each other very much. He is the father of the
Speaker 1: mug shot, and he invented the game. Basically, he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we get photos of these people, will know who they are.
Speaker 1: People are so unlike the Mona Lisa. The mug shot
Speaker 1: is an unflattering profile shot, not a three quarter turn right,
Speaker 1: It yet still reveals humanity in a way. Yeah. Old
Speaker 1: mug shots are pretty pretty. They're amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked about this anyway. So this the dude to
Speaker 1: invents the lug shot, he's a French cop and he's
Speaker 1: on the case, right, So he's like, all right, French
Speaker 1: police with me, We're going to look for clues, right,
Speaker 1: And so they go and they find a fingerprint on
Speaker 1: the glass case a clue. This feels very much like
Speaker 1: a Wes Anderson montage. I'm about to be putting you're welcome.
Speaker 1: So he has all two hundred and fifty seven employees
Speaker 1: of the louver who worked that day submit to be
Speaker 1: fingerprinted to see if they are the one whose fingerprint
Speaker 1: it was. But the problem with his plan is is
Speaker 1: Vinny Perugia is in the wind. He's not coming back.
Speaker 1: He's done. Meanwhile, the French police they have to hit
Speaker 1: the beat there on the streets. They're using the old
Speaker 1: shoe leather technique. They're handed out leaflets. They're asking all
Speaker 1: their snitches, like anybody know anything more days past, nobody
Speaker 1: knows anything. Six hundred leaflets are passed out. Frank reward
Speaker 1: is offered. Nothing. Nobody's coming forward, right, except for once
Speaker 1: the reward is offered, people start coming forward family members.
Speaker 1: They start stitching on their family that it was my
Speaker 1: more freend Gan Luke. I swear you should come in
Speaker 1: and I'll rest him. So people like like, no, no,
Speaker 1: there was my coworker and my boss Frandi. Go through
Speaker 1: his house and you'll search, you will find it. So
Speaker 1: people are doing that, and then you know, some folks
Speaker 1: are real certain that it was the Germans. It is
Speaker 1: definitely right. And then there's the busy bodies and paranoid
Speaker 1: types who were there are two cents in But this
Speaker 1: is the only thing that the French police I have
Speaker 1: to work with basically Twitter. So the newspapers around the
Speaker 1: world they picked this up and it becomes a media circus,
Speaker 1: and you know, this is basically one of the first
Speaker 1: big media sensations of the young century. It happens before
Speaker 1: the Lindbergh baby. This is I don't remember this happening. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you're very young at the time. So anyway, a week
Speaker 1: past and the gendarmes have no suspects, no leads to
Speaker 1: go on, just a bunch of frenchmen going it's the Germans, right,
Speaker 1: So people are like, why wo the guys, I want
Speaker 1: to steal them on that, Lisa, come on, your French
Speaker 1: did of course the most French thing to do. After
Speaker 1: a week has passed and there's no Mona Lisa. What
Speaker 1: do you think they did? You said, the most French
Speaker 1: thing that could possibly do. Tell me whatever offensive thing.
Speaker 1: They reopened the loop after they shut it for the week,
Speaker 1: and they invited crowds, crowds to come into the museum
Speaker 1: and to stare at the blank spot where the Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa used to. People came, he had the droves and
Speaker 1: they stood there like, look at its absence. It doesn't
Speaker 1: want powerful. And one of the famous lookye lose was
Speaker 1: your man Franz Kafka because change in metamorphosish. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: all staring at it. One solitary too, yeah, smoking French cigarettes.
Speaker 1: Well it speaks to me, just talking like a mean
Speaker 1: So now you may be asking, Elizabeth, yes, probably whatever
Speaker 1: it is, what happened to the Perugia brothers Can I
Speaker 1: make a guess? Yes? Please? Did they go to the Homeland?
Speaker 1: Did they go to Italy? Oh it's a really good guess. No, No,
Speaker 1: did they take to the sewers? Another good guess? A
Speaker 1: better guess. I like that one once again. I'm sadly No.
Speaker 1: While everyone was staring at the blank space or the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa used to be the superhero Mario brothers, they
Speaker 1: were in the wind and specifically we'll focus less on
Speaker 1: Michel and and talk about Vincenzo because he stole the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa and he has it. He takes it to
Speaker 1: a very special place, his boarding house. He puts it
Speaker 1: on the far boards of his boarding house. He just
Speaker 1: hides it there and he's like, oh, this may not
Speaker 1: be good because of the moisture. So he puts it
Speaker 1: in a stuffs it in a trunk and then that's
Speaker 1: where it stays in a boarding house. And I wish
Speaker 1: that he was a real sicko and like put with
Speaker 1: him and like y and like a real sickish she
Speaker 1: was a real sicko and put it under his trench coat.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, he wear clothes into the trench coat.
Speaker 1: But then like go to the loose and stare at
Speaker 1: the blank wall with it under his trench coat with
Speaker 1: everyone else, and he should go in like flash people
Speaker 1: with it and just come a quick instantly. He's wearing
Speaker 1: nothing under his trench coat, but he's got it sort
Speaker 1: of like tied in his like one of the sandwich boards,
Speaker 1: and he's a flash very well. He's a tiny guy.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I learned? Michael Jordan's the reason
Speaker 1: why he wore big shorts was because he always wore
Speaker 1: his U n C shorts from college underneath his professional
Speaker 1: under his college under his bowls uniform. So that's why
Speaker 1: he had to get bigger. The whole reason it was
Speaker 1: not because like he thought it looked dope. He's like,
Speaker 1: I want to hide the fact I'm weird my lucky
Speaker 1: shorts from every game apparently during his whole career, the
Speaker 1: same pair of shorts. Anyway, So boarding house Vincent Perugia,
Speaker 1: he's got the Mona Lisa stuffed in the trunk and
Speaker 1: he's just hidden there like like Michael Jordan's boxers. The
Speaker 1: French cops they come to his place because he's one
Speaker 1: of the loub employees, and eventually to his house and
Speaker 1: was like, oh, we want to talk to you know,
Speaker 1: my man Vinny sick. He's saying really offensive hand gestures.
Speaker 1: So the French cops in question. I mean, but Vinny,
Speaker 1: he stays cool, hot headed as he is. My man
Speaker 1: is like cooler than a polar bears toenails, and my
Speaker 1: big boy would say right, I mean, Vanny handles the
Speaker 1: cops questions with ease and the lawn and grace. He's
Speaker 1: just batting him away. He's like, oh, I have an alibi,
Speaker 1: and he takes a dragon. He gets like where I
Speaker 1: made French for this? You say, see how quick that was.
Speaker 1: So they're like, well, where were you? And he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm a friend. I was just simply working at a
Speaker 1: different place that day. And they're like, well that works
Speaker 1: out for us. Arms left working somewhere else. And the
Speaker 1: tell tale Mona lisas like they're probably ashing on it
Speaker 1: as they're smoking with him right everywhere they go, just
Speaker 1: a cloud of smoked so Mona Lisa chilling out in
Speaker 1: the trunk. We'll set that aside for a second. Now.
Speaker 1: The cops they missed the Mona Lisa and they stopped
Speaker 1: harassing Vincenzo because they're busy. They have to go harass
Speaker 1: all the famous um artists and poets of the area,
Speaker 1: because one of them clearly must have done They On
Speaker 1: the September seven, the cops go and they bust the
Speaker 1: poet Giampa and on suspicion of involvement. And now he
Speaker 1: turns out to the Apollonia's secretary, dude named Gary Perey.
Speaker 1: He snitched to a French newspaper and said, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: it's Apollonaria. You need to get after him. He was
Speaker 1: telling me all about it. Allegedly he did this because
Speaker 1: the two of them had like a spat and yeah,
Speaker 1: you wanted to and sell it up. That's the way
Speaker 1: to do it, Yes, exactly, So apollon Are He gets
Speaker 1: arrested and the cops they rough him up. They're like,
Speaker 1: where is the Mona Lisa And he's like, I'm a poet, man,
Speaker 1: I can take so many blows, like I heard Sarah
Speaker 1: has it. And he does unspeakable things to He walks
Speaker 1: around with a big coat. It's got like a sandwich
Speaker 1: board in front of him. So to get himself out
Speaker 1: of his legal predicament of poland Are the poet, he
Speaker 1: gives you know up the most famous person he knows
Speaker 1: who is Pablo Picasso. He was like, Mona Lisa, get
Speaker 1: the big fish. The cops. They take their floating cloud
Speaker 1: of smoke down to picasso studio and they're like, knock, knock, knock,
Speaker 1: and since Picasso like open kicks whatever. Woman's office lad,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you're not my wife gets off to
Speaker 1: so he opens the dark. Pocassa is like, who told
Speaker 1: you I stole the Mona Lisa. I am offended, don't
Speaker 1: you know? I only steal ideas from African artists. Picassa
Speaker 1: didn't say that, but he could have held. What Podcasta
Speaker 1: did say was oh, thank god the police. Yes, guys, look,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what the Mona Lisa is, but
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you are here because interestingly, I happen
Speaker 1: to have some lost artwork from the Louver and it
Speaker 1: may not be stolen, but if you could do me
Speaker 1: a solid, since you're going that way, could you return
Speaker 1: these stolen artworks to the Louver? Would you do that
Speaker 1: for a brother his own stuff? Yeah? You know he
Speaker 1: had stolen stuff from the He just tried to give
Speaker 1: it to the cops because he's like, there it's like
Speaker 1: a library. Fine. Amnesty it's like we're cool. Now. Look
Speaker 1: I thought he was like, oh, I have these pieces
Speaker 1: that were stolen from the Louver and they're his painting. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: get hung up. But what it was, you know, the
Speaker 1: demos da Avignon, it was the mass for that painting.
Speaker 1: That's what he gives back, Like, look, if you invented cubism,
Speaker 1: you can have this back. He very much was doing
Speaker 1: a library fine amnesty. Yeah, he was like if I'm not,
Speaker 1: don't tell Georges's brock. I've done this. I want all
Speaker 1: the credits. So another suspect in this stuff, by the way,
Speaker 1: is the American fat cat banker JP Morgan in yeah,
Speaker 1: because at the time JP Morgan was famous for taking
Speaker 1: like a steamliner over to Europe and then he'd take
Speaker 1: his vast wealth and drag it around Europe and just
Speaker 1: vacuum up whatever, like what he could from like the
Speaker 1: houses that have these paintings and statutory He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're falling on hard times, you German Baron. I'll buy
Speaker 1: up that stuff. So everybody knew about JP Morgan doing this,
Speaker 1: and the rumors of him being involved got so bad
Speaker 1: that the old robber Baron himself had to like come
Speaker 1: out and say make a statement to the press, like
Speaker 1: I didn't take it all right. People, So they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: He's like, look, I am offended. I am you good.
Speaker 1: People should know that I only steal money from orphans,
Speaker 1: the infirmed, the elderly, suckers in the stock market, but
Speaker 1: I would never steal artwork. Once again, he didn't say that.
Speaker 1: Despite all these accusations and denials and arrest and snitching,
Speaker 1: and the Mona Lisa remained missing, still nobody could find it.
Speaker 1: Two years passed as the seasons changed, Elizabeth. No, but
Speaker 1: after this short break, I'll tell you what happened to
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa and how is finally returned to the people.
Speaker 1: All right, where were we in Paris? Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: two years after Vincenzo told the Mona Lisa okay, warrior. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he makes it sound like the Mona Lisa a warrior.
Speaker 1: It's not our warrior, Perugia. He sides, you know, what's
Speaker 1: been long enough. I'm gonna go and try to sell
Speaker 1: this painting on the black market. Easy enough. It's just
Speaker 1: the most famous painting in the world. He's like, look,
Speaker 1: I need to get a big payday. I've written a
Speaker 1: letter to my dad telling him, im, we got a
Speaker 1: big score. I need the money, right, I need the
Speaker 1: money that changes lives. And it's now so we're just
Speaker 1: moments before War one is about to kick off. People
Speaker 1: are getting down, so like, I got to catch a train.
Speaker 1: No wait. He originally took this because he was mad
Speaker 1: because it was Italian in a French museum. And now
Speaker 1: he's like, but I need money. I'll undress all of
Speaker 1: that for you, the naked truth of it. And I
Speaker 1: can't wait. So my man Vincenzo, his Luigi brothers, they're
Speaker 1: out of the picture. That Lancelot Dama, they're gone for
Speaker 1: this point. It's just him working an antique dealer named
Speaker 1: Alfredo Gary. Right, he calls us. He sees the dude
Speaker 1: has ads. Right, this guy has like as a bout,
Speaker 1: like the bus benches, Yeah, the bus benches of Rome Milan. Yes.
Speaker 1: Basically he's like in Florence, he's like, look, I'll buy
Speaker 1: Grandma stuff because the people like, oh, hey, we need
Speaker 1: money to get out of Italy. So like so he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much doing a big push at this point. And
Speaker 1: so so Vincenzo was like, I can slip something past
Speaker 1: this guy. He seems like he's got a little bent
Speaker 1: nose on stuff. He won't you know who, look past it.
Speaker 1: The guy's like, oh, you got the Mona Lisa. Okay, whatever,
Speaker 1: you bring it by the shop. Let's see yet, right,
Speaker 1: So he shows up with the Mona Lisa. He brings
Speaker 1: good by the shot. He's like, hey, here it is.
Speaker 1: So the guy afraid of Gary's like, that's the Mona Lisa.
Speaker 1: What's on the back authenticated? And there's like appropriate stickers,
Speaker 1: the louver marks and everything. He's like, this is the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa. Man, do you know you have the real
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa. No one lied to you. This is the
Speaker 1: real thing. And he's like, I know. I want to
Speaker 1: sell it to you. And he's like I got to
Speaker 1: get out of it. So he's like that. He's like, okay, look,
Speaker 1: I know a guy at the you Fitzi Museum in Florence.
Speaker 1: He's the guy. If you want to sell this, he's
Speaker 1: the one. I'll have him authenticated because I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: it's the real deal. But I'm just a humble dealer
Speaker 1: of antiquities. Where do I know antiques and such? So
Speaker 1: let's call my dude, right now, museum, you've been to that? Okay,
Speaker 1: we've both been to this. What do you you love
Speaker 1: that one? It's like the little rooms and you go
Speaker 1: through and have that huge plasa. So he just feels
Speaker 1: really much like you've stepped back in time. Exactly. Do
Speaker 1: you have any favorite paintings, because there's a bunch of Caravaggia.
Speaker 1: Is there there a bunch of care of as. I
Speaker 1: saw an exhibit of Artemisia Generalisti, which is another one
Speaker 1: of my all time favorites in the style of Caravaggio
Speaker 1: very much, but yeah, that was and that was just
Speaker 1: breathtaking seeing the brush strokes and paintings up close. It's
Speaker 1: just it never gets old. It's always just takes the
Speaker 1: breath away and actually see the brustaurant, but particularly at
Speaker 1: the feet see and like other galleries in Europe, it's
Speaker 1: just to be in that kind of space, that space
Speaker 1: and is it enhances the experience totally gilded wool when
Speaker 1: you're on the tour in the continent. So the director
Speaker 1: of the Offizi at that time was a man named
Speaker 1: Giovanni Polgi. Now Giovanni he gets contact by the antique
Speaker 1: dealer and he for whatever reasons that only he knows,
Speaker 1: he agrees to meet Vincenzo. He's like, bring them by.
Speaker 1: Oh He's like, I don't know. You gotta come to us.
Speaker 1: And he's like, really, I gotta leave Florence, Okay, I
Speaker 1: come up to you. So a meeting is arranged to
Speaker 1: take place in Alan, right, So Giovanni travels up to Milan.
Speaker 1: Vincenzo arrives at the appointed place, and of course he
Speaker 1: has the Mona Lisa with him. He just opens up
Speaker 1: his coat and he's like, look, you still got the
Speaker 1: sandwich park. You are one hairy man. You are a
Speaker 1: kinky son of So just SIT's under his arm, basically
Speaker 1: like wrapped in brown paper or whatever. He throws it
Speaker 1: down on the table, unwraps it. The museum director inspects
Speaker 1: the painting, he has the same reaction. He's like, this
Speaker 1: is the real thing. What do you You got the
Speaker 1: real Mona Lisa here? And guys like yeah. He's like
Speaker 1: oh so if And he's like, now, how much for
Speaker 1: that's what I want to know here? How much? What
Speaker 1: are you gonna pay me? And he guys like okay,
Speaker 1: He's like, well why did you what are you doing
Speaker 1: with this, and he's like, I stole the masterpiece for Italia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I bring Mona Lisa home because that's the Napoleon.
Speaker 1: He'd take out a painting out a tree and he
Speaker 1: goes off. His hands are flying and going crazy and
Speaker 1: he's just going all about patriotic fervor. And they're not
Speaker 1: the long because I told you it's about to be
Speaker 1: World War One. Everyone was like, oh yes. And then
Speaker 1: if it's not the Germans, it's the French, you know.
Speaker 1: So what's his museum director gonna do? Is he gonna
Speaker 1: buy the paintings for they? Tell you? Or is he
Speaker 1: gonna call the police for it? Tell? Yeah? What's he
Speaker 1: gonna do it for? It? Tell you? Poggy. He needs
Speaker 1: a moment to think. Okay, he says, I'm going to
Speaker 1: need to raise the funds. I don't have that money
Speaker 1: on me and here in the suit, so let me
Speaker 1: go talk to people. And he's like, okay, but do
Speaker 1: you mind if I if I hold onto the painting
Speaker 1: and I showed the people, I go, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: buy this because they'll they'll believe it if I have
Speaker 1: it in my hands. He's like, yeah, no problem, Like
Speaker 1: you go, you take it, and so he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: for safe keeping, I hang onto. It's like perfect, So
Speaker 1: he leaves. Vincenzo leaves black market Warrior. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you hang onto the Mona Lisa. I'll come back and
Speaker 1: I'll meet you here and I'll pick up on my million.
Speaker 1: The leader and the like or whatever. They remember that
Speaker 1: a right, So Vincenzo leaves the Mona Lisa with Poggy
Speaker 1: and the other guy, and so, now what do you
Speaker 1: think they do? Are you in an o ft with it?
Speaker 1: They're not me. The museum director immediately calls the police.
Speaker 1: He's like, Toronto, well there's a award. Well he's doing
Speaker 1: he he fights the fight. I mean, this is his calling, right,
Speaker 1: So he's true to the cause and he calls up
Speaker 1: the police. He's I have this guy. So thirty minutes later,
Speaker 1: like a black market Warrior, he's got this rental place
Speaker 1: or whatever. Half an hour after his meeting, gets a
Speaker 1: knock at the door and he's like, oh, it's my man.
Speaker 1: Boy with my money, can do to get and he's
Speaker 1: like they're adjusting his tire. He opens up the door
Speaker 1: and there's a Canbieri. Right, So just a bunch of
Speaker 1: armed federal police Perugia. He gets arrested, right, was like,
Speaker 1: I stole a pig back from Napole and I am
Speaker 1: a patriot, right, still a big max from I stole
Speaker 1: a big maca from a Napoleon. So he goes to
Speaker 1: court and I swear to God, that's what it's He
Speaker 1: sounded like tight my Italian, it's very not what he said. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he's in the court and he is surprisingly not
Speaker 1: a model defendant. What I know, paint your face shocked.
Speaker 1: He was how do you say in Italian? A night
Speaker 1: to man. So he was also filled with a passionata
Speaker 1: and agita. I'm getting it all out before so other ones.
Speaker 1: To other people like me, we would have called him unhinged.
Speaker 1: So during his trial, he would interrupt the prosecutor when
Speaker 1: he was not doing that, he would interrupt his own
Speaker 1: lawyer when he wasn't doing that. He would interrupt the judge.
Speaker 1: So the judge is like, oh man, So he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, basically the judge doesn't throw the book at
Speaker 1: him because they're all Italians and they kind of like
Speaker 1: the national pride argument that he just stays with this
Speaker 1: little like he did spark plug of a man going,
Speaker 1: I do out of us but Italian, but well, you know,
Speaker 1: and it hadn't been a like United country for that long, no,
Speaker 1: like at this point, like thirty four a year, yes,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, looking at like, you know, sixty year,
Speaker 1: fifty year. Yeah, So that basically in memory he became Italy.
Speaker 1: So he has pride and love for a young country exactly. People,
Speaker 1: they were responding to it, and they keep taking the
Speaker 1: drum of war, making people feel like, yeah, the gentleman's
Speaker 1: So his trial is going, not well, but it's going.
Speaker 1: And then uh, he's Italian to the core in that
Speaker 1: like Olmert the way you know, he's like he won't
Speaker 1: bring in his brothers. In fact, instead of like mentioning
Speaker 1: his brothers, he says, I did it by myself, Like
Speaker 1: this impossible. He's like, okay, okay, actually I did it.
Speaker 1: And he names two other people, not his brother's, he
Speaker 1: dang friends just they're like whoa. He's like, okay, So
Speaker 1: there I was with Pablo and JP Morgan and we
Speaker 1: were just talking we should watch a couples. At one
Speaker 1: point in his trial, in uh, yet another demand for respect,
Speaker 1: Vincenzo insists that the prosecution is wrong and that he
Speaker 1: is not as they keep describing him, just some house painter,
Speaker 1: but he's actually a puttore, which in Italian means I
Speaker 1: am an artist. Right. So in June n the court
Speaker 1: decides he's also a criminal, like so Vincenzo Pruga. He's convicted,
Speaker 1: sentenced to what seems to be a rather lenient sentence,
Speaker 1: and this is likely due to his insistence of patriotism.
Speaker 1: But he gets one year in fifteen days, and he
Speaker 1: never gave up his brothers. Good for him, they stay free. Good.
Speaker 1: A few days after he sentenced, World War One officially
Speaker 1: kicks off and everyone says, we don't care anymore about
Speaker 1: all that. You're going from beauty to bloodshed, and they
Speaker 1: turned their minds completely away, and the story gets lost
Speaker 1: to time. Did he get let out to fight? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he went, and he fought for Italy and then he
Speaker 1: survived the war yep, And he managed to get married.
Speaker 1: I have a kid named her, had a daughter named
Speaker 1: to Celestina Good and then eventually he passed away and
Speaker 1: he named him, yes, grandson. There is a theory that
Speaker 1: Vinny wasn't a pay street or even the mastermind of
Speaker 1: this crime. And instead, in fact, he was just a
Speaker 1: hired inside man. And this theory you'll see it online,
Speaker 1: is that there was a man named Eduardo the val Fierno,
Speaker 1: and he was the true mastermind of the theft of
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa. The story goes, val Fierna was a
Speaker 1: con man, career criminal. He had been hired by a
Speaker 1: French art forger named Eve's Chadrome. And you see, when
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa was stolen, not only was the image
Speaker 1: publishing newspapers all around the world, but suddenly the painting
Speaker 1: became a sensation, so postcards were being purchased, copies of
Speaker 1: the original were being purchased, and you know, it became
Speaker 1: basically the world's first must have dorm room poster, right
Speaker 1: that's essentially what it is right now. Being a forger,
Speaker 1: Eves Drone, he was like, I gottah. So he's like
Speaker 1: he had anticipated the furor over the stolen masterpiece because
Speaker 1: he happened to have set himself up with paintings, just
Speaker 1: scads of copies, and these are he's an art forager,
Speaker 1: so they look identical. They're basically counterfeits, and he's hoping
Speaker 1: he could maybe pass one or two office there. The
Speaker 1: original didn't get a big payday off of like a counterfeit.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So the idea is that he knew this
Speaker 1: demand would be incident and profitable, and he gave him
Speaker 1: time to paint the counterfeits because he had arranged for
Speaker 1: it to actually happen. He created the demand. The idea
Speaker 1: was the forger Sharon hired this con man, valfier No,
Speaker 1: who in turn hired Vinni Porogia, the self described patriot
Speaker 1: who ultimately steals the Mona Lisa. And this theory comes
Speaker 1: to light in nineteen thirty two in the Saturday Evening Post.
Speaker 1: But there's more to this story. And because the journalist
Speaker 1: was named Carl Decker, nobody you wouldn't know him. I
Speaker 1: don't know him, it doesn't matter. But he was an
Speaker 1: old fashioned writer of the yellow journalism era. He was
Speaker 1: a washout from the William Randolph Hurst hey day. And
Speaker 1: at this point he's years past his glory and he
Speaker 1: was like, you know, he's a kind of guy who
Speaker 1: helped get America into the Spanish American War. He got
Speaker 1: blood right, so now he's like, I haven't had a
Speaker 1: good bloody story for a while. But finally he's got
Speaker 1: a lot of two. I'm feeling lucky. So the journalists.
Speaker 1: Apparently he crossed pass with the con man val Fierno
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirteen before the painting had resurfaced, and the
Speaker 1: French common man spilled his guts to the American journalist
Speaker 1: and tells him the whole criminal escapade, the scam of
Speaker 1: it all, And years later the journalist writes it up
Speaker 1: in the Saturday Evening Post runs the story. There's a
Speaker 1: problem with the story though. The story of the scam
Speaker 1: of the forger Eveshaw Drone and the con man Eduardo
Speaker 1: de val Fiernano total fabrication. It's more yellow journalism. So Decker.
Speaker 1: What it Decker had done was basically steal the cachet
Speaker 1: of the Mona Lisa and make up a story that
Speaker 1: can maybe you know, get him some little cache of
Speaker 1: his own. And he waited till no one could refute
Speaker 1: the story. What are you gonna trust me or some
Speaker 1: French criminals? Now, if you can believe it, there's a
Speaker 1: whole movie that debunks his theory, the documentary about it
Speaker 1: that goes into like how he's wrong, and uh, there
Speaker 1: was a bunch of people who want to basically correct
Speaker 1: the lie, and now just for the sake of it.
Speaker 1: This is a book review from the Association for Research
Speaker 1: of Crimes against Art. The review destroys a recent book
Speaker 1: that I won't mention the repeated the whole con man
Speaker 1: in forger story, and I quote the Velfier and the
Speaker 1: story was long ago rejected as one of two things,
Speaker 1: either a wholesale invention by Carl Dekker to sell his
Speaker 1: story or a wholesale invention by a con man in
Speaker 1: Casa Blanca that pulled the wool down over Mr Decker's eyes.
Speaker 1: It is a shame, then, that a work of nonfiction
Speaker 1: professing to tell the true story behind a famous true
Speaker 1: crime should so mislead its readers. Without the addition of myth,
Speaker 1: the story of the Theft of the Mona Lisa is
Speaker 1: rich and enthralling, with a fabulous cast of characters, the
Speaker 1: backdrop of free War, Paris and Florence and ripples felt
Speaker 1: to this day. For not only was the theft of
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa the most famous theft of any object
Speaker 1: in history, but it also inspired other thefts, altered the
Speaker 1: concept of what makes the work valuable, and proved to
Speaker 1: be a turning point in the history of art, of
Speaker 1: collecting and of art crime. They're like, and this bozo
Speaker 1: got it wrong. I love it now for what it's worth.
Speaker 1: I think my man leader nuttered Ven she who was
Speaker 1: known as a big practical joker, would appreciate all this
Speaker 1: mystery and lies and creating whirling around his work, and
Speaker 1: that his work is still creating to this day. I
Speaker 1: mean the fact that the Mona Lisa remains a riddle,
Speaker 1: wrapped up in a mystery, ensconsin an enigma and with
Speaker 1: a smile of an angel. So that's it, Elizabeth, that's
Speaker 1: my story. I gotta ask you, though, yeah, would ridiculous takeaway. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just thinking about that final book review.
Speaker 1: But I really love like cattiness in niche interest groups.
Speaker 1: So pull for you, thank you. I'm really enjoying that.
Speaker 1: But I also, you know, I think about too how
Speaker 1: we put value onto anything, really, but works of art
Speaker 1: in particular and the story of it all, the story,
Speaker 1: and he proved that it's the story of it all,
Speaker 1: and so you can have like technical ability or just
Speaker 1: like the emotional resonance was something um and and I
Speaker 1: guess you know, really in more accessible areas of art
Speaker 1: um you know, when you get more into like some
Speaker 1: of the postmodern stuff where it has to be explained
Speaker 1: to you to understand what that is um. But in
Speaker 1: the in these terms, there's there's that immediate emotional like
Speaker 1: you know, connection that people have or an understanding. But
Speaker 1: then that when we say provenance, we're not just tracking
Speaker 1: the the ownership, we're tracking the story of the piece
Speaker 1: as a living thing really, and that always just is
Speaker 1: so interesting to me. What can increase the value and
Speaker 1: then how do we do that like in our own lives,
Speaker 1: not just for like a piece of art, but things
Speaker 1: that we have that are important to us because of
Speaker 1: a story behind it. And so the kind of currency
Speaker 1: and value of story and the multi joining that part
Speaker 1: of it. And that was that was my ridiculous takeaway.
Speaker 1: So thanks a lot, Elizabeth. I knew, I know, I
Speaker 1: can slide in there like a cloud of dust behind
Speaker 1: my ridiculous takeaway? Is it? Uh, you shouldn't name your
Speaker 1: Sarah doesn't have original thought and it's just so cleverunds
Speaker 1: here like a xerox copy of a fart. So my
Speaker 1: ridiculous is a listener that speak for the zards intelligence
Speaker 1: because he's far superior blah. Anyway, you can find his
Speaker 1: online at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Twitter
Speaker 1: that's where we lie to the public. Twitter is where
Speaker 1: we put our COVID misinformation. Is that what it Twitter's for?
Speaker 1: I thought it was just allfmation. Instagram that's where the
Speaker 1: truth in the light and the way is found. Um,
Speaker 1: there's also photos we put up so we won't do
Speaker 1: any reels. I don't even know what that is. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I told the Instagram person that does our
Speaker 1: Instagram account like to do a real thing, and they
Speaker 1: just gave me the finger. You're you're holding a fishing
Speaker 1: pole when you said that was the confusing part. You're like,
Speaker 1: I have to do it real. I got You're like, oh, grandma.
Speaker 1: But you can find us there at Instagram where the
Speaker 1: you know, the interns keeper and uh, the stories are
Speaker 1: put up there for the giggles, and you know, you
Speaker 1: get sneak peaks of Epps on both. So hit him
Speaker 1: up email if you want. We're at Ridiculous Crime at
Speaker 1: the jamail dot com jail Gmail. Thanks for listening. Ridiculous
Speaker 1: Trime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett, produced
Speaker 1: and edited by our resident art history themed mail stripper
Speaker 1: Leonardie vo De Costoon and All Coustin researches by Mona
Speaker 1: Marrissa Brown and Andrea Jaconda Conda Conda Conda Camille. Our
Speaker 1: theme song is by the Duke of Milan, Thomasino Lee
Speaker 1: and Archie Duke Tim Dudntino. Executive producers are Ben, Paint
Speaker 1: me like one of your French girls, Bolan and No,
Speaker 1: and then paint me like one of your French squirrels.
Speaker 1: Proud we did quiet, say it one more time We
Speaker 1: dequeous Crew. Ridiculous Crime is a production of I Heart Radio.
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