They knew exactly what they wanted and exactly where it was located. Conveniently, since the museum was arranged chronologically, their target had been on the first floor, easily visible and accessible. The leader smashed its glass case, grabbed it, and the gang of them were out the door with it within five minutes.
As Rivera guided his visitors from the site of the penetration to the actual site of the theft, he engaged in a back-and-forth of questions from the four detectives. LeMaitre and Fitzpatrick had an old-school style about them, despite their comparative youth, and made handwritten notes in their notebooks. Rizzo followed with arms folded much of the time, but held a small recorder that took in every word for later review. Alex trusted her memory and frequently found note taking a distraction, so she listened, tried to sort out the most salient details, and wrote down nothing. She knew she could always consult back with Rivera or any of the others present.
The tour concluded in front of the broken display case, which had been emptied of other antiquities by the museum staff and put on display elsewhere. The case had been taped up and cordoned off, though there was still an air of ignominy about it. It stood in shame on the main floor like a cat with a broken tail.
“Fingerprints, there were none,” Rivera said in conclusion. “DNA tests haven’t helped. Our security cameras have no good pictures of the thieves, as I’m sure the local police explained to you in your meetings yesterday. These thieves were very good and very careful.”
“Something I’ve been wondering,” Alex pressed, continuing in Spanish, “many of these other pieces would have an infinitely higher value on the black market. So I’m trying to understand their mindset. What is it about this piece that is completely different from any other object here or, say, in the Louvre or in one of the great museums in London or New York?”
Rivera thought for a moment, then smiled slightly. “Very perceptive question,” he said. “You’ve read all the material I gave you?”
“Yes, I have,” she said.
“Nothing stands out?” he asked.
“Many things stand out. But nothing is sobresaliente. There is no single feature that dominates all others. So again, I’m trying to put my mind inside an expert’s.”
Rivera smiled. “All right, since you asked, there is perhaps one aspect to this piece that I find particularly engaging,” Rivera said. “It’s something I note as a good Christian and as a Roman Catholic. It’s in the material I gave you, but to some degree it’s buried. Do you know where I might be going with this?”
“No tengo la menor idea,” she answered. Not in the slightest.
“There was a young Italian of the twelfth century named Giovanni di Bernadone,” Rivera said. “I’m sure my distinguished guest from Rome, Gian Antonio Rizzo, can tell us the name under which Bernadone is better remembered.”
Rizzo nodded slightly.
“As anyone who survived fourteen years of Catholic education could tell you,” Rizzo said, “Giovanni di Bernadone later became known as Saint Francis of Assisi. He was the founder of the Franciscan order, patron saint of animals, birds, anything that creeps or crawls, and more recently the blasted Green Party and our soon-to-be-completely-ruined environment.”
“And for what is St. Francis best remembered?” Rivera pressed.
“Aside from the crows and the jackasses?”
“Aside from los cuervos and los asnos, yes.”
“St. Francis was an early evangelist,” Rizzo said. “When St. Francis lived, Christianity had been established in Europe for many centuries, but Francis sought to spread it into Islamic territories. At great personal risks, I might add.”
“That is correct.”
“Not too much different from today,” Fitzgerald added.
Rivera smiled. “St. Francis of Assisi went to Egypt on a mission of peace about eight hundred years ago,” Rivera said. “This was at the time of the Fifth Crusade, launched by Pope Innocent III. In 1219, Francis left, together with a few companions, on a pilgrimage of nonviolence to Egypt. Crossing the lines between the Sultan Malek-el-Kemel and the Crusaders in Damietta, he was received by the caliph, whose Islamic army was defending the Holy Land from the Christian armies. Francis challenged the Muslim scholars to a trial of true religion by fire. But they refused. So Francis proposed that he would enter a blazing fire first and, if Francis left the fire unharmed, the sultan would have to recognize Christ as the Savior of mankind. The sultan didn’t take Francis up on his offer. But he was so impressed that he allowed Francis to preach to his Islamic subjects. He didn’t succeed in converting the sultan or very many of his subjects. But the last words of the sultan to Francis of Assisi were, ‘Pray for me that God may deign to reveal to me that law and faith that is most pleasing to him.’”
The journey of Francis of Assisi, as a poet, as a minister, and as a lay evangelist, Rivera stressed, was one of attempted reconciliation between Islam and Christianity. For that reason, St. Francis was revered in the Islamic world for many centuries up until and including modern times. “By scholars of both religions,” Rivera concluded, “he is often seen as an architect for interfaith dialogues.”
“St. Francis was also an accomplished poet in his own right,” Alex said, recalling. “When I studied Italian in Rome many years ago we read ‘The Canticle of the Sun’ and ‘The Canticle of the Creatures.’ The poetry was dense since it was Italian from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.”
“Thank you,” Rivera said good naturedly. “What a wonderfully overeducated bunch of detectives I have here. It’s refreshing.”
“Well, I did my Renaissance studies too,” Rizzo said. “My only further comment is that Saint Tom had a more benevolent view of the ragheads than that scoundrel Dante Alighieri, whose The Divine Comedy placed Muhammad in hell with his entrails hanging out. Justifiably to modern readers, I might add.”
There was laughter around the small circle of five.
“That may be more than what we need to know, Senor Rizzo,” Rivera answered with a sly smile. “But I mention all this because in contemporary accounts of the burial of St. Francis in 1226, there is an account that a friend placed a ‘lamentation’ in St. Francis’s tomb with him. No one knows exactly why, but perhaps it was because Francis was the first known person to manifest the ‘stigmata,’ the wounds borne by Christ from the crucifixion. So a ‘lamentation’ would be a logical item to accompany Francis to the grave. And, as The Pietà of Malta has an Arabic inscription, and as St. Francis’s tomb has been disturbed at least three times over the centuries, there is further conjecture-no proof, mind you, but further conjecture-that it was this piece that actually went into the ground with St. Francis. Hence, perhaps, its mystique. Hence, the notion that a certain supernatural aura is attached to it, one that transcends an earthly grave. After all,” Rivera concluded, “it is very possible that this particular piece went into the earth with a saint and then returned to the living world.”
The laughter by now had dissolved. Alex felt a little chill.
Into the grave and out of it. What had she gotten into? Yet she also noted the link to the Islamic world.
“Resurrection. Eternal life. The property of a noteworthy and revered saint, and a link to the Islamic world of the Middle Ages. All part of the equation here, my friends,” Rivera said. “All part of the unique aspects of The Pietà of Malta. So when you ask about qualities that set it apart from any other object in the museum, and perhaps even the world…to my mind? I have just told you.”