The Mona Lisa Theft: The Handyman Who Took It
Episode notes
On a Monday morning in August 1911, the Mona Lisa vanished from the Louvre. Nobody noticed for more than a day. The museum closed, the police questioned hundreds of people, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested, and even Pablo Picasso was brought in for questioning.
The thief was Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handyman who had once worked at the museum. He walked out with the painting under his smock and kept it in his Paris room for more than two years. This episode follows the theft, the long search, and the clumsy sale attempt in Florence that finally gave him away. We also sort the record from the legend, including the tale of a mastermind who sold forged copies to collectors, and how the theft turned a well-known painting into the most famous one on Earth.
Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI model of the host's voice, and checked against the historical record.