Antonello da Messina artwork stolen from museum in Italy

Altarpiece panels, separate painting taken from museum in Renaissance painter's hometown

Four artworks by 15th-century painter Antonello da Messina were stolen overnight from the Museo Regionale di Messina, Italy's culture minister said Sunday.

"I've learnt of the theft with shock and sadness," Alessandro Giuli said in a statement.

The theft deprives Messina of parts of the only surviving work by the Renaissance painter to have remained in his native city, as well as a small painting acquired by the Sicilian Region two decades ago.

The theft happened on Saturday night during a national holiday in Italy, media said.

A museum official reached by Reuters couldn't provide any other information.

"It was almost out of a movie," said Enzo Caruso, a local councillor in charge of culture, according to Corriere della Sera website.

Caruso said the purchase of a Messina artwork by the Italian state for $15 million US earlier this year may have put the museum on the radar of the thief or thieves.

Three of five remaining panels that made up an altarpiece known as Polittico di San Gregorio were stolen.

Originally comprising six panels and destined for a local monastery that was destroyed by Messina's 1908 earthquake, the altarpiece was the only work by the Sicilian painter never to have left his hometown.

A fourth artwork was stolen from a secure display case: a small two-sided painting depicting the Virgin with Child and a Franciscan monk on one side and Christ on the other.

Theft follows recovery of other artists' paintings

The work was part of the Wilhelm Soldan collection and was sold by Christie's to the Sicilian Region in 2003, the year it was attributed to the artist.

In February, Italy's Culture Ministry bought another two-sided painting, known as Ecce Homo, from Sotheby's just before it was to be sold at auction.

Born around 1430, Messina trained in Naples, studying the works of Provençal and Flemish artists, whose influence is apparent in his works.

He returned to Messina in 1457, where he worked until 1474.

The theft took place after Italian police on Friday recovered three paintings by French masters Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse that were stolen from a museum near the northern city of Parma in March.