Carabinieri found 100 million masterpieces

Paintings by Simone Martini, Bernardo Daddi, Agnolo Gaddi, and even two gilded bronze sculpture by Donatello. These are just some of the treasures recovered by carabinieri in Florence. It is fifty works of art, the market value of more than 100 million euros, all belonged to the collection of the antique Florentine Carlo De Carlo and mysteriously disappeared from his home at the time of his death, December 20, 1999.

After years of investigation, and the guilty man come forward voluntarily. A simple phone call to the police to confess and to shed light on a mystery that lasted nearly twelve years. To steal from the house the works of De Carlo was the son of his housekeeper. Man, GC, a fifty-one living in Florence, was denounced by the police for theft.

For years he hid in his house a treasure of paintings, sculptures in bronze and wood, enamels, and bas-reliefs. He said he wanted to safeguard the will of their owner. He explained that the antiquarian, who died suddenly, wanted to leave the entire collection to his secret daughter Lisa. So he decided to make it disappear, otherwise the collection should be divided among the legal heirs.

Now the precious heritage will be divided between Lisa, meanwhile became “official”, and the legal heirs of the wife of De Carlo. The exceptional discovery puts end to a story that began in 1999. In the early months of research, investigators focused their attention on the son of the housekeeper, as well as the housekeeper and the daughter of De Carlo, proved extraneous to the facts then. The result was a long list of suspected men: among them even the publisher Leonardo Mondadori, in whose apartment the police found nine pieces belonged to the collection De Carlo. Now the truth came to light.