Word: raphaels
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...news last week in Rome had to do with sculpture (see above), but Romans had a second story that interested them almost as much: the case of the missing Raphael...
...painting in question was a Madonna miniature done by Raphael in 1501, when he was just 18. Its owner, Professor Tullio Gramantieri, had refused as much as $75,000 for it. Then, 2½ years ago, it was stolen from the professor's apartment. Until last week, Rome's police were stymied...
...from a Rome art dealer put them on the track. The dealer had been visited by a distinguished-looking stranger who said he had a miniature by Raphael which he would sell for only 2,000,000 lire ($3,200). Suspicious of the low price, the dealer put off the caller and called in the police. They set up a street-corner rendezvous, nabbed the distinguished-looking stranger...
...Raphael they were looking for, right enough, but he was not exactly a stranger. The police identified him as Franco Bertucci, a salesman and onetime plainclothesman on Rome's own police force. The rest of the story, as the police told it: Bertucci had once consulted Professor Gramantieri about another miniature (which turned out to be a fake). In the course of the consultation, kindly Professor Gramantieri had hauled out his Raphael from its hiding place in the bookcase. On a return visit during the professor's absence, the police were convinced, Bertucci had known just where...
...week's end, the former plainclothesman was awaiting trial in Rome's Queen of Heaven jail; Professor Gramantieri, in view of all the publicity, was thinking about a safer place for his little Raphael...