Pier Luigi Cimma, Cultural Property Theft, Florida 1990

Pier Luigi Cimma, a professor, and his wife Franca Gatto stole a 15th century manuscript from the Capitular Archive of the Archdiocese in Turin, Italy

TAMPA, Fla. – The Missal of Ludovico da Romagnano, a 15th century manuscript known as the San Lorenzo, was repatriated to the Italian government Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

A. Lee Bentley III, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, Susan McCormick, special agent in charge of HSI Tampa, and Adolfo Barattolo, the consul general for the Italian Consulate in Miami, participated in the repatriation ceremony.

In 1990, the Archdiocese in Turin hired a team of professors to inventory the church’s ancient archives in preparation for an upcoming exhibit. After that inventory concluded, the Archdiocese determined 263 parchment pages had been cut from a missal, a breviary and an antiphonary. They were all from the same collection.

The two individuals, Pier Luigi Cimma and Franca Gatto, husband and wife, were arrested and confessed to the authorities that they had stolen several items, most of which they sold to a bookseller in Turin, Italy. The Monza Nucleo dei Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale in Italy, a specialized police unit for cultural property, recovered some of the stolen items from Sotheby’s in London.

The Carabinieri called Professor Constanza Montel Segre as an expert witness in June 2011 to confirm the manuscript featured in a newspaper article was the one stolen from the archives. She confirmed with certainty that the 15th century manuscript was the San Lorenzo, page 212 from the Missal of Ludovico da Romagnano.

With information taken from the sale receipt, HSI special agents located and interviewed the owners of the Islamorada antique book and map store where the St. Petersburg couple purchased the manuscript. The store owners often traveled to England to attend book auctions and other similar events to obtain items for their store. The item was likely purchased in England – where the Italian government had previously located several other stolen Italian artifacts – and transported back to the United States.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/15th-century-manuscript-repatriated-italian-government