The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection (35 page)

Geri’s heart was pounding, but he forced himself to remain calm, for the most difficult part of the transaction had to be accomplished. He and Poggi explained that the painting had to be taken to the Uffizi Gallery for further tests. Leonard seemed pleased, for he knew that the Uffizi was almost as prestigious an institution as the Louvre itself. Clearly, he expected to go along with them.

The
Mona Lisa
was rewrapped in the red silk, and the three men went downstairs. As they were passing through the lobby, however, the concierge stopped them. Suspiciously, he pointed to the package and asked what it was. He obviously thought it was the hotel’s property, but Geri and Poggi, showing their credentials, vouched for Leonard, and the concierge let them pass. Geri remarked later that it had been easier to steal the painting from the Louvre than to remove it from the hotel. “If the guardians of the Louvre had had the same curiosity, never would the Gioconda have come to Florence.”
¹²

At the Uffizi, Poggi compared sections of the painting with close-up photographs that had been taken at the Louvre. There was a small vertical crack in the upper left-hand part of the panel, matching the one in the photos. Most telling of all was the pattern of
craquelure,
cracks in the paint that had appeared as the surface dried and aged. A forger could make
craquelure
appear on a freshly painted object, but no one could duplicate the exact pattern of the original.

There could be no further doubt: the
Mona Lisa
had been recovered.

Poggi and Geri explained to Leonard that it would be best to leave the painting at the Uffizi. They would have to get further instructions from the government; of course they themselves could not authorize the payment he deserved.

The Uffizi was an awesome setting, and Leonard felt overwhelmed by their arguments. How could he doubt two men of such standing and integrity? He did mention that he was finding it a bit expensive to stay in Florence. Yes, they understood, said the two experts. He would be well rewarded, and soon. They shook his hand warmly and congratulated him on his patriotism.

As soon as he left, Geri and Poggi notified the authorities. Not long after Leonard returned to his hotel room, he answered a knock at the door and found two policemen there to arrest him. He was, they said, quite astonished.

iii

As word spread that the
Mona Lisa
had been found, the first reaction was disbelief. Upon hearing the news, Corrado Ricci, the director of Italy’s Department of Fine Arts in Rome, immediately left for Florence so that he could conduct his own tests on the painting. Other art experts converged on the Uffizi, eager to see the work. Of course, just to be present at the examination was a mark of one’s importance, so Poggi had more requests than he could handle.

When a reporter telephoned a curator of the Louvre to tell him the news, the Frenchman was at dinner and flatly refused to believe it. He said it was impossible and hung up. The museum itself issued a cautious statement: “The curators of the Louvre… wish to say nothing until they have seen the painting. Certain descriptions of details and features give rise to some doubts among them.”
¹³

Ricci, however, confirmed Poggi’s previous judgment that the painting was authentic, and the Italian government made an official announcement to that effect. The French ambassador in Rome made personal calls on the premier and foreign minister of Italy to offer his government’s gratitude. It was at the time presumed, but not of course absolutely certain, that the painting would be returned to the Louvre.

When the news reached the Italian Parliament, it interrupted a fistfight on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies. The minister of public education brandished a telegram about the return of the
Mona Lisa,
and the battling deputies surrounded him, clamoring for details. When he reported that the thief had taken the painting under the impression that he was recovering one of the treasures stolen from Italy by Napoleon, some of the deputies nodded. Even those who knew Leonardo himself had taken the painting to France believed that the French armies had seized other works of art during the Napoleonic Wars, for which no reparations had been paid. It seemed only fair that Italy should now keep the painting done by one of its most illustrious sons.

Cooler heads prevailed, and the minister announced later, “The ‘Mona Lisa’ will be delivered to the French Ambassador with a solemnity worthy of Leonardo da Vinci and a spirit of happiness worthy of Mona Lisa’s smile. Although the masterpiece is dear to all Italians as one of the best productions of the genius of their race, we will willingly return it to its foster country… as a pledge of friendship and brotherhood between the two great Latin nations.”
¹⁴
The thought that the two countries were united in their common heritage was significant, for Italy was formally an ally of (non-Latin-speaking) Germany, France’s perennial enemy. In 1915, after the outbreak of World War I, Italy joined the fighting on the side of France, in part owing to the fraternal feelings engendered by the
Mona Lisa
affair.

iv

Meanwhile, the man who called himself Leonard was being intensively questioned by the police. He talked freely, for he was still under the impression that he would be acclaimed by Italians when they found out his motive for the theft. He admitted that his real name was Vincenzo Perugia
¹⁵
and that he had been born in 1881 in the village of Dumenza, near Lake Como. Having left there as a young man because there were not enough jobs available, he went to France, where he found work as a housepainter and carpenter. (“Pittore,” he responded when asked for his occupation — using the word for artist, not merely housepainter.) Yes, he had worked at the Louvre — had, in fact, been one of those who had made the protective box that held the glass covering the painting. Perugia confessed that he had become fascinated by the image: “Many times while working at the Louvre I stopped before daVinci’s picture and was humiliated to see it there on foreign soil. I wasn’t attached to the Louvre for long, but I remained on friendly terms with my old working companions and I continued to visit the museum, where I was well known. I thought it would be a great thing for Italy were I to present the wonderful masterpiece to her, so I planned the theft.”
¹⁶

This news turned the spotlight back to the Sûreté and brought uncomfortable questions for Lépine and Bertillon. It turned out that Bertillon’s massive files did contain a record card for Perugia, with fingerprints. He had been arrested twice before: once for attempted robbery, and a second time for carrying a knife. But Bertillon’s insistence that his own system was superior to fingerprinting had proved to be a crucial error. He could not match the thumbprint on the
Mona Lisa
’s frame to the one on Perugia’s arrest record because the files were not arranged according to fingerprint patterns but by the system of physical measurements called bertillonage. And since the police had no suspect to measure, they could not determine Perugia’s identity.

Some reporters recalled that at the time of the theft, all current and recent employees of the Louvre had been called in for questioning. Was that the case with Perugia? The records were checked, producing more embarrassing revelations: Perugia had indeed worked at the Louvre between October 1910 and January 1911, although no one could say for sure if he had really worked on the glass covering for the
Mona Lisa.
Worse yet, when he had not responded to a letter asking him to come in for questioning, a detective named Brunet had gone to Perugia’s room and interrogated him. Brunet had even searched the place, finding nothing. If Perugia was telling the truth, the
Mona Lisa
was actually there, in the false-bottomed trunk, during the detective’s visit. Brunet had dutifully noted in his report that Perugia had been at work elsewhere on the day the painting was stolen. However, when reporters tracked down Perugia’s employer, they learned that his records showed Perugia had been two hours late for work that morning. Perugia confirmed this, saying that after he stole the painting, he took it to his room before reporting for work.

Adding insult to injury as far as the French police were concerned, Perugia’s insistence that he was a hero found sympathetic ears, at least in Italy. Every day, people gathered outside the jail in Florence to cheer him. He received gifts of homemade food, wine, cheese, cigarettes, and even money. At the hotel where he had stayed, the proprietor found that the contents of the now-famous trunk were in demand. People offered to buy them as mementos — even the paint-stained rags Perugia had used to wipe his hands. A reporter for the newspaper
La Nazione
interviewed him in jail, where Perugia protested, “I have rendered outstanding service to Italy. I have given the country back a treasure of inestimable worth, and instead of being thankful, they throw me in jail. It’s the height of ingratitude.”
¹⁷

After a triumphal tour through Italy, where thousands of people stood in line for a look at the painting, the
Mona Lisa
resumed its old place on the wall of the Salon Carré on January 4, 1914. It had been gone for two years, four and a half months. In the next two days, more than one hundred thousand people filed past, welcoming back one of Paris’s icons. Outside, vendors sold postcards, including one that showed La Joconde in a Madonna-like pose, holding a baby. Standing behind her, as if he were a proud new papa, was Perugia.

v

Almost like a father, the man who had kidnapped her was embellishing his story and enjoying the notoriety it brought him. “My work as a house painter brought me in contact with many artists,” Perugia said. “I always felt that deep in my soul I was one of them.… I shall never forget the evening after I had carried the picture home. I locked myself in my room in Paris and took the picture from a drawer. I stood bewitched before ‘La Gioconda.’ I fell a victim to her smile and feasted my eyes on my treasure every evening, discovering each time new beauty and perversity in her. I fell in love with her.”
¹⁸

The police branded Perugia’s romantic and patriotic declarations as sheer invention. In Paris, detectives had revisited the boardinghouse room where he had stayed, this time giving it a more thorough search. They came up with some interesting finds. First were two notebooks in which Perugia kept a kind of diary. Under a date in 1910 he had made a list of art collectors and dealers in the United States, Germany, Italy, and England. Among the collectors were John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie. Geri was among the Italians listed. Pretty clearly, Perugia had money on his mind at the very time he was helping to put the
Mona Lisa
inside a protective case — almost a year before the robbery. Perugia tried to deflect the new evidence — and Geri’s account of their discussions about money — by claiming he was being a dutiful son: “I was anxious to ensure a comfortable old age for my parents.”
¹⁹

Something else the police found in Perugia’s room, however, only added to his romantic appeal. This was a bundle of ninety-three love letters, bound with red ribbon, sent to him by a woman who signed herself “Mathilde.” Somehow the police, or enterprising reporters (it was never quite clear), developed the story that Perugia had attended a dance where Mathilde had been stabbed by the man who had brought her. Perugia carried her to the house of an old woman, who nursed her back to health. Afterward, Mathilde and Perugia fell passionately in love. The icing on the cake, for the newspapers, was that Mathilde was said to have borne a remarkable resemblance to Mona Lisa.

An intense hunt began to find this mysterious young woman. Analysis of the letters showed that her French was not very good. From that fact alone, speculation arose that she must be German, and that fueled the idea, never abandoned in some quarters, that the theft had all along been a German plot to embarrass France.

Meanwhile, two detectives from the Sûreté had arrived in Florence to question Perugia. His legal situation was uncertain, for the French government had made no move to extradite him — and never would. It seems possible that the Italian government, recognizing Perugia’s popularity, willingly gave the painting back in exchange for France’s agreement to allow Perugia to remain in Italy. At any rate, since he freely confessed to the crime, the French detectives were more interested in identifying any accomplices he might have had.

Apparently trying to convince his questioners that he had taken good care of the painting, Perugia said that because he feared it was too cold in his lodgings, he had stored it with a friend named Vincent Lancelotti. That sent French police in search of Lancelotti, another Italian who had come to Paris to find work. Here too they turned up information that proved embarrassing for the French authorities. Shortly after the robbery, Lancelotti had actually been questioned by Magistrate Drioux, and acting on a tip, Drioux had ordered Lancelotti’s rooms searched. When nothing was found, Lancelotti was released.

Now the police returned to his apartment house on the rue Bichat, across the street from the Saint-Louis Hospital in the tenth arrondissement. Lancelotti’s mistress, Françoise Séguenot, answered the door and said he was out. Asked when he would return, she shouted, “You’re not going to start these annoyances again,”
²⁰
and protested that Vincent had already been cleared of any involvement in the theft. The police left but staked out the building and were rewarded a few minutes later when a man with his collar turned up and a cap pulled over his eyes emerged. One of the detectives recognized him as Michael Lancelotti, Vincent’s brother. Michael was apparently not the brains of the family, for when the police stopped him, he let slip he was going to the Practical School of Hypnotism and Massage, where his brother was a student. Françoise had told Michael to give Vincent ninety francs and to tell him to take the train to Belgium at once.