An Old Timey Podcast - 37: Stealing the Mona Lisa

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Back in 1911, the Mona Lisa didn’t get a lot of attention. Art critics considered it an excellent example of a painting from the renaissance era, but the general public wasn’t nearly so enamored.That changed in August of that year, when someone plucked it off the wall of the Louvre, busted it out of its glass box and frame, and took off with it. Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Who stole the Mona Lisa?” by Simon Kuper for Slate“Stolen: How the Mona Lisa became the world’s most famous painting,” by James Zug for Smithsonian Magazine“Stealing Mona Lisa,” by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler for Vanity Fair The documentary “Mona Lisa is Missing”“When Picasso went on trial for stealing the Mona Lisa,” by Ian Shank for Artsy.net“The man who stole the Mona Lisa,” by Laura Cumming for The Guardian“The Theft That Made The ‘Mona Lisa’ A Masterpiece,” NPR.orgAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And people hate to see me go, but they love to watch me leave. With that honky-tong, by don'tca-dunk. And on this episode, I'll be talking... I didn't get to say my name. Oh, I'm sorry.

Go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm Norman Caruso. Oh, and he said he slinks out of the bar, but we love to watch. watch him leave. And on this episode, I'll be talking about the theft of the Mona Lisa. Wait a minute. That's pretty dramatic. Oh, it's dramatic, all right. You know anything about this, Norm? I know you covered it on your old decrepit rotting podcast. Don't you dare say that. The maggots, you just brush them off of that thing. Uh-huh. Yeah, this is a story I covered on Let's Go to Court. I got to say, you know, in last week's episode, I was like, hey, new stuff has come out about this case.

New stuff has not come out about this one. You got a wake-up call when you were researching? Well, not really. I guess not a wake-up call. Nothing woke you up. It was, oh, I know all this already. I love this story. Isn't this what got you into art heists?

No, I've always, don't say into art heist. That makes, they're going to think that I did the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist. They're going to come knocking at that. the door. The feds at 6 a.m. Knockety knock. And I can't have you getting arrested right now because this podcast is a lot of work. I can't do it solo, okay? Oh, that was really sweet. No, I've always been obsessed with art heist. I've always found them fascinating. I think it takes a real set of nuts. Cajonais. You got to have nuts on nuts on nuts and your truck has to have nuts to pull off an art Heist.

You've got to have the biggest damn wrinkleberries around to pull off an art heist. You still hate that term, don't you? I really do hate it. I really do hate it. Mostly because the first time you said it, I thought it was a real berry. And I was like, I really need to up my fruit game because I don't know about that fruit. You did think it was a real berry. One of my favorite clips that we've posted on our social media at old timey podcast.

Oh, do you have some plugs you want to do before I talk about this thrilling art heist? Kristen, I got breaking news for you. Oh. I have decided I am going to boycott Jimmy Johns. Oh, my God. Folks, last week, I was craving Jimmy Johns. I'm somewhat of a sandwich connoisseur. I have a lot of respect for sandwich artists.

And I was really craving a big old honking tuna sandwich. Hold on. This is the story you're starting the show with? It is. Okay. Do you have a problem with it? Oh, no. No, not at all.

Any questions or concerns? No, please, please go right ahead. Let the people know. Okay, well, I wanted a big old honking, stinky-ass tuna sandwich. So I placed my order on the Jimmy John's app. And I usually pick it up and bring it home and we enjoy a lunch, watch a little TV together. But I open my sandwich and I realize it's missing all of my extras that I added. I wanted extra onion.

I wanted cheese. I wanted those Jimmy peppers, which are delicious. spicy and none of it was on there. And I got to tell you, folks, this is a recurring problem at this Jimmy Johns. Sometimes they don't make my sandwich correctly. Norm, if you think people are going to feel sorry for you over this, you will. No, you're dead wrong. Why not?

Didn't the Jimmy Johns guy get caught like shooting big game or something? Well, then they'll appreciate my boycott, won't they? No, they're going to be like, Norm, why did you still go there after all that? And also, ew, you wanted cheese on your tuna sub? Oh, yeah, provolone. Provolone's very good on a tuna sub. Anyway, I decided I was finally going to contact Jimmy Johns and just say, hey, I frequent this location. They make my sandwiches wrong a lot.

I just want to let you know. And I got an email response that was like, you will hear back from us in 48 hours. They are ignoring my calls. Your calls? You started calling that? I tried calling you. And that is why I am boycotting Jimmy Johns. I will no longer be a patron of their restaurants.

Seems like they were boycotting you by just ignoring you. That's not what a boycott is, Kristen. Get your terms correct. But with that being said, because I am boycotting James John's sandwich shop. Jimothy. Jimothy. Yes, is that his name, Jimothy? Yes, I think so.

Okay. Well, I'm going to have to try out a ton of new sandwiches, Kristen, and that's going to get real expensive, real quick. And that is why it is more important than ever to support this small, independent, sexy podcast on Patreon. Norm, I had totally lost faith in you. I thought we weren't even doing a Patreon plug at all. I thought this was just a grown man crying about his Jimmy John sub being messed up. What do I love to say on this podcast? I don't know.

Two things can be true. I am a grown man crying about it. my Jimmy Johns, and I am also plugging our Patreon. Folks, if you love what we are doing, please consider supporting us on Patreon. As a non-threatening fan at the $5 level, you get monthly bonus episodes of an old-timey podcast with full video and access to our Discord server.

At the $7 level, you'll become a history ho, which is a very respectable title these days, Kristen. And you get a signed thank you card, stickers, and access to our monthly trivia party. where history hoes from around the world compete for fabulous prizes. But the real value, Kristen, is that $10 pig butter investor level because you're going to get all of that, plus early ad-free episodes of an old-timey podcast with full video, 10% off all merch, and ad-free episodes of the entire catalog of Let's Go to Court.

I loved the way you said entire. Entire. I got to emphasize entire because it is the entire. catalog. So head on over to patreon.com slash old tiny podcast to sign up. Thank you. And let's begin this episode. Oh, okay, okay.

I'm taking over. By the way, Norm, I think with your Jimmy John stuff, you really got to take some lessons from blonde white ladies. Such as who? Any Karen. What would a Karen have done? A Karen would not be ignored. My good sir.

A Karen would demand the manager. A Karen wouldn't be afraid of making a scene. I don't want to make a scene. I don't want to confront anyone. I don't want to talk to anybody. I'm very non-threatening. I sent a simple email. I expected just like an email back that was like, hey, we're really sorry.

Hey, we'll give you a $5 gift card. We'll refund you because I paid for that extra cheese, by the way, and I never got it. He's over it now, folks. Don't worry. He's fully recovered. Something like that, and I would have continued to eat sandwiches from that restaurant. If a Karen had been through what you went through, she would own that Jimmy John's Jimothy right now. I think a Karen would have stormed into the Jimmy Johns, and there would have been shredded lettuce flying everywhere.

Freaking salami splatted against the wall. The cops would have walked into a gruesome scene. Yes. Oh, tomato paste everywhere. Where? They don't have tomato paste at Jimmy Johns. Wow. Okay.

And I, you know what? There's a lot about that story that I don't think really adds up. You think people with tomato paste on their sandwiches? You know what? Don't worry about it. That's disgusting. Let's talk about the Mona Lisa. Okay.

All right. Here we go. Do you really know nothing about this? The one thing I remember about this story. Okay. Is the guy got lead poisoning, right? How do you, how is that? what you remember. That is the weirdest little detail. I don't know why that always stood out to me,

but maybe because it like scared me so much. Because we live in old houses and I'm like, oh, what if we get lead poisoning? Oh my God. Well, I know, I know. Just stop eating the chips off the windowsill and you'll be fine. They're so delicious. Okay, picture it. Tuesday, August 22nd, 1911, we're in Paris's most famous art museum, the Louvre. Is that how you say it? The Louvre? That's how I say it. Okay. Kind of like Brett Favra.

Right, right. Yeah, that makes sense. That morning, an artist named Louis Baru entered the Louvre's Salon Carre. Salon Carre. Was it a... Mm-hmm. It's just a fancy room in the Louvreau. Louvre. Okay, so it wasn't like a hair salon. No, but that would be amazing. Unfortunately,

it was just a regular-ass room with paintings on the wall. Okay. Louis had a vision for his next painting. He wanted to paint a young woman doing her hair with Leonardo da Vinci's famous Mona Lisa in the background, except famous might be a generous word. These days, we can all agree that the Mona Lisa is a very famous painting. When people visit the Louvre. Let me look up the pronunciation. Yeah, I think it's funnier that you actually don't know how to say this. So I think you should continue calling it the Louvre.

Okay, Joe, keep it in. Yeah, I was going to say, I think the R is silent. Well, that was a secret to me. Kind of like tomato paste on sandwiches. Oh, shut up. Ooh, extra tomato paste for me. When people visit the Louvre, the Mona Lisa is a mandatory stop. There's always a line.

There's always a crowd. An estimated 8 million people see the Mona Lisa every year. But that definitely wasn't the case in 1911. Really? Yeah. So it hasn't always been popular? Nope. Why not?

I'll tell you why if you sit still and listen. I guess you don't have to sit still. You could do a little dance. I'm going to cause a lot of noise and interrupt the podcast. Back then, the Mona Lisa was appreciated, but only by nerds. Leonardo da Vinci had painted it around 1507, and it wasn't until a couple hundred years later in the 1860s that people in the art world began to really appreciate the Mona Lisa. They thought it was an excellent example of a pageant. painting from the Renaissance era.

So the super fancy, oh no, I went too far in my script. So. This episode's off to a great start. It's a little chaotic. So the super fancy art people had somewhat recently decided that the Mona Lisa was the gold standard for Renaissance paintings. But for your average museum goer, the Mona Lisa was not a must see. You know, that's interesting because. I think if no one had told me the Mona Lisa is a famous painting, I don't think I would look at that painting and be like, wow, this is an incredible painting.

Hmm. That's interesting. Why do you say that? I don't know. It's just a portrait of a woman. Well, here's the other thing. I don't know anything about art. Uh-huh.

So who am I to judge if this is good art or not? Right. But yeah, if no one had told me the Mona Lisa is a big deal, then. I don't know if I would have given it a second glance. I do wonder if you were in a room with it, if you'd feel differently. Possibly. I've never been to the Louvre. Now, if you showed me a painting of Sonic the Hedgehog pregnant, I would have said this is an incredible work of art.

My God, this must be studied. Put it behind glass. Well, yeah, we need to know the origins of this. No, okay, I only say that because I remember seeing, Michaelangelo's David in person. What is that? It's a statue of David. Is it the one where he's naked?

Yes. No, he's wearing a backwards hat and ginko jeans. And it is breathtaking. No, I just, it was funny because I remember I'd seen it in books before and kind of thought, eh, just another sculpture of a dude. Yeah. But then seeing it in person, it's breathtaking. Hmm.

So you're saying if I went to the Louvre. Okay, you don't have to keep pronouncing the art. I'm having fun with it. Come on. If I went to the Louvre and I saw the Mona Lisa in person, you'd think I would, I'd be, I'd think differently. Maybe. Maybe. But also, I think this story is a big reason as to why the Mona Lisa is as famous as it currently is.

Interesting. I've never been to France. Neither have I. We're such losers. Yeah. I'll say. So some people really appreciated the Mona Lisa. Other people, like yourselves, prefer to see Sonic pregnant.

You know, maybe wearing a moo-moo. Nevertheless, Louis Buru needed the Mona Lisa for his painting. But when he went to the gallery where it had always been hung, he noticed that it was missing. Hmm. He was a little annoyed. Back then, the Louvre photographers could take paintings off the wall, bring them back to the studio and photograph them without any kind of checkout process.

Didn't even need to fill out a form. So not the top brass work in here? This is just like... Yeah. So it was pretty slack? It was, you know, casual laid back atmosphere. We're a family here. Just take a painting off the wall.

Go photograph it. Come back when you're ready. Come back when you're done. It's casual. Huh. If you forget the cheese on our sandwiches, we won't get mad. I don't know why. I thought of this, but when I worked at GameStop, we were allowed to rent brand new games and play them and then bring them back and they sold them as new.

That is a scandal on par with what happened at the Louvre. Well, it does. It's like the rules are pretty slack and it's like, yeah, I'm going to go take the Mona Lisa off the wall and take. and take photos of it, but, you know. It depends on the game. Yeah, it could be a historically important game. Uh-huh. So that was the thing that happened fairly often.

It really wasn't a big deal. They'd take a painting for a while, bring it back a while later. So Louis waited and waited and waited. Was he waiting just standing there, or did he just, like, come back every day? It's the same day. Okay. Okay. And finally, at around 11 a.m. or so, he went up to a security guard and asked him if he wouldn't mind figuring out when the photographers would be done with the Mona Lisa.

So the security guard went and talked to the photographers, but none of them had any idea what he was talking about. They hadn't touched the Mona Lisa. They asked more people. Where's the Mona Lisa? Do you have it? Does he have it? I don't have it. Do you have it?

Anyone seen the Mona Lisa? At first, everyone was pretty calm. The Louvre was and is a huge place. In fact, according to Smithsonian Magazine, in 1911, the Louvre was the biggest building in the world. What? I know, that seems wrong. That's why I'm saying it's the Smithsonian Magazine that said it, not me. The biggest building in the world?

It spread out over 45 acres. It had more than a thousand. rooms. Hmm. She's a big gal. What about like a skyscraper or something? Are they just saying it's like the longest building or? It said the biggest building in the world at the time.

Norm, I don't know how many times I have to tell you. I'm skeptical too, okay? Well, see, here's where you and I are different, Kristen. I know. If I read that, I would have spent 12 hours figuring out if that was true, okay? Meanwhile, I looked up how to pronounce the Louvre and then forgot it and looked it up again and forgot it again and tried to write it phonetically and still messed it up. That's how I spend my time. Yeah, you read a fact like the Louvre was the biggest building at the time and you just say, I don't know about that and then you just keep writing.

No, I did look it up. I did find some confirmation, but I didn't dig too deep. So there you go. This is why the history hoes can help us. Maybe they can step in and do some history ho work and figure out if the Smithsonian magazine are lying scumbags. Oh, my God. Okay. So they searched and searched and searched.

And then they made an unsettling discovery in a service stairway tucked into a corner. They discovered the glass box that had once surrounded the Mona Lisa. And next to it lay its frame. The painting itself was gone. Oh, shit. You, I can't imagine how, if I worked there, how fucking nervous I would be. I was like, oh, shit, we are fucked. It's terrible, and you don't even know how terrible, Norm.

Okay, so police arrived on the scene. They sealed off the museum. They told all the museum goers that they'd had a water leak. Everybody get out. It's just a water leak. We definitely didn't just. Let somebody walk off with the Mona Lisa. We're not terrible at her jobs, bye.

So now we've got 60 police inspectors on the scene. They set to work interviewing people, searching for clues. Amidst the chaos, one thing was certain. The Mona Lisa had been stolen, and the person or people who'd taken it had been brazen. This was shocking. Sort of. Sort of. Okay, well, the truth was that people kind of knew that the security at the Louvre was pretty lax.

A few months prior, a reporter spent the night at the Louvre just to prove that he could. Just to be like, no one stopped me. I could have done anything. Oh, man. That was like a dream of mine as a child to, like, be stuck in like a Walmart overnight or something. Or like a toy store. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Did you ever have, like, imagine that? Of course. Of course. Yeah. Where the heart is? A night at the museum. This is a thing. From the mixed up files of Mrs.

You know that book. No. No, you don't. It's just a thing. A lot of us really want to be trapped in cool places. Yeah. I mean, the fact that a reporter went to the Louvre and did that, did they do anything after that report came out? Or were they just like, how dare you?

you. Um, I don't think they cared a ton, as you'll see. Wow. Okay. Sometimes small works of art, like, you know, little statues. They just went missing. Every now and then, the Louvre would get threats from people who said they were going to come steal the artwork. And, you know, the leadership at the Louvre wasn't really concerned about the threats. And frankly, they didn't even seem too worried about the small missing pieces. That's priceless art. That's crazy to me. This is like one-of-a-kind stuff, and they don't care if people are swiping it.

It's not like one-of-a-kind stuff, Norm. It's not like, you know. They're treating it like a 7-Eleven. Yeah, sometimes people come in, get their slurpees, and they just leave with them. Yeah, you filled that slurpy a little too high, but you know what? I'm going to look the other way. I'm going to charge you for a medium. Now, Norm, you might be thinking, hey, twas the early 1900s.

Maybe that's just how museums worked back then. I don't really know much about museums from back then, so. Tell me, Kristen. Well, it seems that things weren't actually super lax everywhere in the early 1900s. Back then, a lot of prominent museums had the art bolted to the walls. You couldn't just take a painting off the wall. That sounds like a good idea. Right.

But at the Louvre, you could. Where we hold some of those priceless art in the world, you can, it's not bolted to the wall. Not at all. It's hanging on the wall, much like the mirror in our living room. I'm like, just anything. Oh, well, let's be clear. The shit that hangs in this house is toggle bolted to the walls. It ain't going anywhere.

That's right. Good luck. I overcomplicate everything when I work on this house. So, yeah, I use toggle bolts to hang stuff sometimes. Now, imagine if they toggle bolted to Mona Lisa there. I don't even know what that means. I'll be honest. Okay, well.

Do I want to know? No, I don't think you will find it interesting. I don't think anyone listening to this podcast will find it interesting. But for the few history hoes out there that know what a toggle bolt is, you know. how powerful and strong they are. Everybody, we just dodged a bullet. Everybody, let's all clap hands. Yeah, look good too.

Okay, now in the Louvre's defense, they said that they kept the paintings just kind of hanging on the walls in case of a fire. They wanted everything to be easily taken off the walls by security guards. Which I, you know, that did get me thinking. I mean, surely there's got to be some kind of middle ground.

But when you're thinking about threats at this time period, probably fire was the most reasonable threat. Yeah, I mean, fire was a big problem in those old-timey times for sure. And you know that Mona Lisa would burst into flames real quick. Probably painted with some deadly combination of chemicals and like raccoon anal glands or something. Gross. Well, whatever they made pain out of back then. It was the raccoon anal glands. Yep. And boy, the first guy who figured that out, they thought he was nuts.

But a few years later, they're all doing it. He had paint all over his face. Norman. Eureka. Disgusting. Anyway, that makes a lot of sense, Kristen. They don't bolt it to the walls because if the Louvre catches on fire, you've got to move all the paintings out. Yeah, that's what they say anyway. It's a good excuse. The only thing that had been keeping the Mona Lisa on the wall were four hooks.

So the museum says they hung stuff that way for ease in case of a fire. You know, security guards would save the day. Speaking of security guards. Yeah. There had been 150 security guards on duty on the day that they realized the Mona Lisa was missing. Which really isn't very many people when you consider how massive that museum is. So it's spread over 45 acres. So that's like three security guards an acre.

That's not bad. Not bad. That's not bad. You can't keep eyes on stuff? I mean, that's true. In an ideal world, you'd have a security guard with a machine gun standing beside each piece of art. But, you know. I feel a lot safer when everybody's got a machine gun.

I do, too. But maybe that's just me as an American. Yeah. So they've got these security guards. I say not enough. You say maybe enough. Well, if there are a lot of hallways and rooms, yeah, you would need more than that. Yeah, this is not like a big cavernous space.

Yeah, I was thinking like a big pasture. You could have three guys kind of, you know, get a triangle formation. Uh-uh, uh-uh. And they didn't have little walkie-talkies at the time either. No. Like, hey, do you see anything? What about in your corner? Your corner?

They had tin cans with the strings. and it just didn't even work. Trippazard. It didn't work when we were kids. Didn't work back in 1911. I never tried it as a kid, but you saw it in the movies all the time, and I always wondered if it worked. It didn't. Kyla and I tried.

We were devastated. Yes. Okay. Anyway, so they've got security guards. And these security guards had been sent to the Louvre by the War Department. Wow. So they were taking this seriously, huh? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. The type of security guard that the war department said, you know where we're going to put you at the art museum. It was the top brass. Oh, so was it like the shitty shift? Like, you got to work at the art museum? No, I don't think it was shitty at all. But it was where they put folks who were real close to retirement,

folks who drank on the job, folks who napped on the job. Okay. Yeah. Okay. But you could get it. a kick-ass nap at the Louvre. Oh, hell yeah. And that's how the Mona Lisa got stolen.

And the guard is like, in my defense, I've been a little sleepy lately. And I feel a lot better now. I'm refreshed, ready to solve the case. So the Louvre had security guards, but they mostly sucked and everybody knew it. It was a running joke in France. One newspaper editorialist joked, For the safeguarding of the precious objects, the public is requested to wake the guards if they are found to be asleep. Well, they asked attendees to wake the security guards up.

Well, Norm, it's a joke. That was a joke in a French newspaper. Oh, I'm sorry. Norm, are you still thinking about Jimmy Johns and what they did to you? No, I'm not. I apologize. Hashtag never forget about that sub. Continue. Hashtray, please pay attention.

I'm trying. I'm like a security guard at the Louvre. Around this time period, the Louvre had two incidents where people walked up to priceless works of art and slashed them. Why? What do you mean? Why? Why would someone do that? Well, I mean, they're probably...

Is a prank bro? This is a prank bro. It was the original prank of YouTube. It was a prank YouTube channel, Norm. It was old-timey. how it went. No, I mean, I think sometimes people do this for attention. Sometimes they're a little bit cocoa bananas. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. I don't know that you're going to get a real solid logic as to why I slashed the painting. Yeah, I need to stop questioning everything. Just listen along.

Earlier, I'd said that small statues went missing pretty often. But in 1910, a really heavy statue of the Egyptian god ISIS. just poof, disappeared. Holy shit. Like, how big? How big are we talking? I don't know how big, but it was very, very heavy. So I just want to make it clear. It's not like people were just stuffing things into their pockets.

I mean... Yeah, you'd have to plan that and carry it out unless you were a big old buff boy, and you can just sling it over your shoulder. Well, I would argue how much planning do you need to do when the guards are never around and when they are around, they're not great at their job. Yeah, I mean, if they're sleeping on the job, then, yeah.

So, security was pretty laid back. And you know what, museum leadership was pretty laid back, too. Months earlier when the director of France's National Museum was about to take off for a nice little summer vacay, he reassured the press that the Louvre would be completely secure in his absence. He said, you might as well pretend that one could say, steal the towers of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The idea that anyone could steal from the Louvre was ridiculous.

Even though it happens all the time, okay. Yeah. And then he said, oh shit, did I just jinx myself? So when the museum leadership found out that the Mona Lisa had been easily stolen, they knew they were in for a big old ass whooping. From whom, though? Who's going to whoop their ass? Everybody's going to whoop their ass?

because all of France has been teasing them for years. I mean, I know you didn't get the joke initially, but everybody else did. I know. I know. I'm frazzled by it. So they knew they were in for an asswomen, but for now,

not everyone knew that the painting was missing. And so that meant that investigators had a little bit of time, time to determine that the painting had to have been stolen the day before on a Monday. The museum was closed to the public on Mondays. So that narrowed down the suspect list. But it didn't make things easy. Because even on a Monday, there were always a bunch of workers at the museum.

They'd move stuff around, they'd clean it, they'd photograph it, they'd do maintenance. So even seeing someone walking around with a painting wouldn't have necessarily set off alarm bells. And if you're wondering, if any of the security guards noticed any suspicious activity, then you should know that there were only 10 of them on duty that day. Now, what if they saw somebody with like a, you know, like the hamburger outfit carrying a painting out? That would seem suspicious to me. Then they'd be like, hold on. That guy only steals burgers.

What is he doing at the loop? What is in that knapsack? And why is it shaped like a rectangle? Maybe he's stealing a Wendy's burger because, you know, their patties are square. That would be quite a controversial thing. That is interesting. I wonder if the hamburger, does he stick specifically to McDonald's burgers or does he? Of course he does.

What the hell kind of question is that? Well, I'm just saying he's the hamburger. Doesn't he go to other establishments? Absolutely not. That's like when athletes have to sign the contract, I'm only wearing Nike. And boy, you get caught wearing Adidas, mm-mm. So he's only stealing McDonald's burgers. Absolutely.

I feel very strongly about this. Okay. You know I'm right. I mean, he is a cartoon character invented by McDonald's, so. I tell you what, if he shows up at Wendy's, he'd better be in a juicy couture sweatsuit. Okay, he can't be in his normal day clothes. So, police were like, this is not good. The painting was taken more than 24 hours ago.

No one really remembers who was here yesterday. We're not even totally sure what time of day this was taken. Yeah, there's no security cameras, nobody saw anything. But someone had to have seen something. Because it was true that the Mona Lisa was just hanging on the wall by a couple hooks, but that bitch was heavy. When you factored in the weight of its frame and the glass box surrounding it, weighed about 200 pounds.

Yeah, the frame would be very heavy. Do you think you could take something that's 200 pounds off a wall? Oh, God. I could probably take it off the wall, but it would crash to the ground, and I don't know if I'd be able to carry it. 200 pounds is a lot. You've got a factor in, you're stealing it from a museum, so you've got that weird adrenaline strength. So you're up a couple notches. Do you think you could do it?

I don't think so. I've never attempted such a thing. I feel like I might die under the weight of it, but I know that can't possibly. be true. You wouldn't die under the weight of it. It's only 200 pounds. Maybe from the drama. Chris, if I laid on you, you're saying, I weigh 200 pounds.

If I laid on you, you're saying you would die. Yeah, but you're not shaped like a rectangle. It's the pointy edges that would get me, I think. Oh, it's the sharp edges that would kill you, not the weight. I see. Thank you for clarifying. No, I mean, 200 pounds is a lot to carry around. So it's like, no wonder he busted the glass and took it out of the frame.

He would get tired real quick. I agree. I agree. I agree. Whoever did this had taken the Mona Lisa out of its glass box and out of its frame, but it had been painted on wood. It wasn't a Jessica Simpson poster. You couldn't just roll it up.

Ooh, I had one of those. I know. That's why I mentioned it. I think it was the Rolling Stone cover. Oh, listen to you. I think, but I don't remember. Except I remember everything about it in great detail. Except I could sketch it from memory.

And I could hang it in the living room on four little hooks. A toggle bolted to the wall for sure. Yeah, I may have been a fan. The Mona Lisa is an inch and a half thick. It's 30 by 21 inches, which, you know, it's not huge, but it is bulky. Gerthy is what the art world says. That's not what the art world says. This is a very girthy painting.

An inch and a half thick? Yeah. Holy moly. On a piece of wood, he said? Yes. That's a heavy canvas. And 30 by 21 inches. I wonder how Mr. Da Vinci painted on that wood.

Because, like, wood absorbs paint kind of strangely. I wonder how he got it to, like, absorb evenly. Oh, it was the raccoon anal glands. That was the secret. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That you got it, Kristen. Yeah, yeah.

Aren't you glad that came in handy? I am. Good callback. Uh-huh. So it's not super small. It's not super big, but it's bulky enough that it's kind of an awkward thing to leave a museum with in secret. Well, yeah, definitely. Norm, unfortunately, the investigators did not solve this crime by dinner time.

And that night, the evening papers carried the news that the Mona Lisa had. had been stolen. It was horrible. First, because the Mona Lisa was an important piece of art. Second, because investigators had no clue who could have taken it. And third, because it had obviously been very easy to take. So they had no leads at all at this point. They were like, okay, probably an inside job, going to talk to current employees, going to talk to former employees.

That's a lot of people. So they're feeling optimistic. I'm not. I'm not feeling optimistic at all Well, it's a good thing You're not one of the investigators Because I think that negative attitude Would a torpedoed this whole investigation

Positive vibes only Yes We don't need any Debbie Downers Looking for the Mona Lisa, damn it I don't know fellas I can't even get Jimmy Johns to put cheese on my sandwich You think we're gonna find the Mona Lisa That's enough of you making fun of me

For boycotting Jimmy Johns I'm standing up for what is right Oh, well done, sir. That day, the director of the Louvre resigned. The French government was very upset. The public was upset, and the media was on top of this. They covered the hell out of it. I bet.

The theft brought out a lot of strange speculation. Mm-hmm. Speculation about who had done this, and for what purpose? Did they get any, like, anonymous tips? Like, oh yeah, I know who stole it. Oh, that's interesting. They had to have gotten some anonymous tips that, you know, led them nowhere. But there were a couple theories.

Saying if you were pissed at your neighbor, you could definitely be like, yeah, my neighbor, Roy. I saw him with a new painting in his home above the fireplace. And it looked awfully like the Mona Lisa. Go in there, guns blazing boys. Go in there. Night sticks out. Beat that man. So the first question, naturally, is, what's the point of stealing art? There are a few obvious answers.

This was a controversial topic when you covered this last time. Yes, because I totally get why you would steal art. And I maintain if I was some rich, creepy dude, God willing, one day. And I just had all the... I can see being so creepy that I can see being so creepy that I... I've got like a secret room in my house, and it's full of just, you know, stolen art. Yeah, the Nazis stole a lot of art. Are you comparing me to a Nazi?

No, I'm just stating a fact. Yeah, so a lot of people thought, you know, maybe some creepy rich dude wanted something that money couldn't buy. He'd had people steal it for him. And boom, now the Mona Lisa was hanging up in his Scrooge McDuck money pit. My only issue with that is like I feel like that involves multiple people and it's harder to get away with that. Sure. Yeah. Someone's going to squeal eventually, right?

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. It's tough to pull off. I agree. That's why they say that if you do this, you have to have a set of truck nuts on your truck. Yeah. Not optional. Right.

A lot of people blamed rich Americans who'd recently come to. to Europe with serious money, buying up art. J.P. Morgan was someone they really suspected. Really? Mm-hmm. He was like a banker, J.P. Morgan? I think so, yeah. Yeah, because that's a bank today, right? Do you want to look it up?

Oh, I guess. I guess I can do that. J.P. Morgan, American financier and investment banker. So I'm going to venture to say yes. Big, fancy rich boy. Yeah. We had quite a stash. Yeah, so the theory was maybe some rich American had come over, seen the Mona Lisa and said, I've got to have it. Okay.

Another less obvious but way more probable theory was that maybe the Mona Lisa had been stolen by someone who wanted to just use it for leverage. Oh, okay. So like I'll give it back if you give me 200 billion francs. Well, so the thinking is that sometimes criminals use stolen art as a bargaining chip. They're in a jam, they need some leniency, they want to get out of something. Oh, let me tell you where the Mona Lisa is. Oh, so like, where's my fucking money? And you're like, I don't have any, but I do have the Mona Lisa. Yeah, that is one possibility.

I'm thinking more like you've been caught by the feds. Oh, and you're saying. And the feds want the Mona Lisa? we'll let you go if you give us the Mona Lisa Norm Is that what you're saying? Yes Okay

Interesting Not necessarily We'll let you go I mean I don't know what this Made up criminal has done But if He's been terrorizing the wild raccoons And he's like

Listen I'll leave the raccoons alone Even though I secretly think they like it But I'll leave them alone And I'll give you the Mona Lisa And we'll forget this whole thing. Okay. Leverage.

Got it. But in the immediate aftermath of this news, some of the theories were odd. Some of them were even hateful, Norman. For example, one alt-right newspaper blamed Jewish people. Dale as oldest time. That's people accepting blame that they should. That's the Price's right song. They've been called up.

Oh, I see. Yeah. Sorry, I couldn't catch that tune quite right. It seemed a little off. No, it wasn't a problem with my delivery. Also, people were pretty mad at the Germans at this point in time. They were getting a little suspicious of what these Germans are up to. You know, it's 1911.

So they're like, yeah, the Germans did it. Yeah, this was three years before World War I. So that makes sense. May I tell you my favorite weird theory? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. What if I had said no? No, we don't want to.

hear it. I would have told you anyway, even harder. Shut the hell up. You shut up while I tell you this theory. Some folks theorized that the Mona Lisa had been stolen for weird sex stuff. Yep, yep, yep, it was true. Sexy times. Oh, gross. Sexy.

Why? Sexy. Why? Sexy. Sexy times. For new listeners to the podcast, that is my dad's voice. Why do we have that clip? Why does that exist?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? You ask. And I agree. Why? It's all terrible. I can use some of these sound bites for leverage, I feel like. The Mona Lisa has a weird effect on some folks, Norm. It's arresting the way she seems to look right at you. The beginnings of a smile are on her face, and it's enough to make a creepy dude wonder,

Is this chick end to me? Do I need to take this slab of wood home and do stuff to it? What? No joke. People sometimes wrote love letters to the Mona Lisa, which is weird because she's a painting. It was creepy enough that the staff at the Louvre gave the Mona Lisa a little more security than it did for some of the other paintings, which isn't saying much, I know, but still. Are you saying people jerked off to the Mona Lisa? I did not say that.

Okay, were you implying or insinuating? I don't know the difference between the two ought to be honest. Here's the thing. I think, in light of what we know about the security at the Louvre, I think minimum 20 dudes a day could have jacked it right there, and none of the security guards would have caught him. Yeah, if there's only three in that surrounding area. Oh, we got another jacker.

This is disgusting. I mean, it is in a glass box for a reason. I'm just saying people got weird around it sometimes. I'm about to bust. So when the Mona Lisa went missing, a French psychology professor came forward with a theory. Their theory was that the person who'd stolen the Mona Lisa might be a sexual psychopath. That's rock solid. Bad news, Norm, bad news.

The sexual psychopath might now be mutilating, stab. and defiling the Mona Lisa. That's what this professor said. This is no laughing matter, sir. How are we going to get these stains out of the Mona Lisa? True story. So in light of this theory, investigators went to all the local surrounding hospitals and said, if anyone shows up here seeking treatment for a splinter in their dick,

you have to let us know. Shut up. Almost fell for that, honestly. I was thinking you'd be like, if anyone shows up at this hospital, complaining that they've like jerked their dick raw, we're going to go investigate. There were also conspiracy theories.

Ooh, like aliens. I know you love a conspiracy theory. I do. You ready for this one? Yep. The New York Times speculated that maybe the Mona Lisa hadn't been stolen at all. They posited that the staff at the Louvre had tried to restore the Mona Lisa,

and in the process, they'd messed it all up. And rather than just admit that they'd messed up this priceless painting, they invented this story about it being stolen. That's honestly not a bad theory. I agree. Okay. If you're watching the video version of this podcast, Joe, will you please show? show the restored Jesus painting that just went horribly, horribly wrong.

I can't remember the name of the painting, but it is just so funny. It's now called Messed Up Jesus. Wasn't it like, I believe that story was like a little old lady who volunteered at the museum, tried to like do her own restoration work on this priceless painting of Jesus. And, you know, she had maybe the best intentions and just oopsies, it really got away from. Oh, boy. It was amazing. I don't know what I'm doing.

It reminded me of, I remember when I was a little kid and I had a blank piece of paper and I had this vision of what I was going to color on it. And in my head, it was just so cool and there was going to be this over here and that. And then I draw and it would just suck and I would be devastated and surprised every time that I couldn't pull off the vision in my head. Yeah, yeah. Like, why didn't this turn out the way? I envisioned in my head, which was the perfect masterpiece with no mistakes at all. And I'd like to think that that lady was just like me, just like, you know what? I'm just going to touch up Jesus's cheek.

Hang on our Lord and Savior. I've almost got it. Oh, shit. Oh, that's not the right shade. Oh, oh, no. Hey, I mean, this, honestly, this happens a lot. Less is more. If you feel like you messed up, don't try to go back and fix it.

This is a known thing. This lady went too far. I'm telling you. I like to think that someone had their paintbrush right up to the Rembrandt, and they heard you say that. And they're like, you know what? I'm just going to leave it be. I'm going to leave it be. Yep.

Listen to Normie C. So while the city of Paris and eventually the entire world ran wild with theories, investigators focused on what they knew. They knew that the painting had been taken on. a Monday when only staff were allowed to enter the museum. And that coupled with the fact that the glass box and frame had been found in a service stairway meant that this had to be an inside job. And even better, when they examined that discarded frame, they discovered that someone, hopefully the thief, had left behind a fingerprint.

Aha. So they got to work interviewing and fingerprinting the same. staff. Beepoo, beepo, people. We're talking about hundreds of people. That was very high-tech sound I made. That's wrong for this time period. Obviously. I was to say, this is old timey times. This would take a while. That's the sound. That sounds like an ambulance. I think they had sirens back then. So they're doing all this work, but no one's fingerprints matched the print found on the frame. And to make things even more frustrating, no one claimed to.

remember seeing any strangers walking around the museum that Monday. But here's the thing. In 1911, fingerprint analysis was pretty new. And it seems that the French investigators didn't totally understand what they were dealing with. Because when they took the fingerprints of the staff, they only fingerprinted people's right hands. Oh. But your fingerprints aren't the same on both hands. I didn't know that.

Yeah. You're like a French investigator in 1911. You're just as stupid as they are. So your fingerprints don't match. So like the right index finger will be different from the left index finger? Interesting. Now, could they tell what finger it was from the fingerprint? Could it that was a pinky finger or that was a ring finger? Oh, that's interesting.

I mean, I can tell you it was a thumb. But I don't know that they knew at the time that it was a thumb. It would probably depend on how big the print was. I'm learning something new every day listening to this incredible podcast. Now, what they didn't know and what they couldn't have known, was it the print that the thief left on that picture frame had come from their left hand. Days crept by. Eventually they reopened the museum, and this time, even though the Mona Lisa hadn't been popular at all just two weeks earlier, a crowd of people showed up just to look at the empire. spot on the wall where it had once hung. Sacre ble.

In her absence, the Mona Lisa was officially a sensation. Her photo ran in newspapers all over the globe. People reproduced her image in advertisements. A new hit song played out of every phonograph. The lyrics included the delightfully bitchy verse. It couldn't be stolen. We guard her all the time, except on Mondays. That's a tune that I may not.

Fake. No, no, that's a real line. Now, obviously that tune is something that I made up. Uh-huh. But there really was, like, there was a popular song, and one of the lines was, it couldn't be stolen. We guard her all the time, except on Mondays. I thought you had made that up because it's so stupid. No! Norman! Well, you know what they say, Kristen?

Don't know what she got till it's gone. Paved Paradise put up a Mona Lisa. That's what they say. So, the Louvre was a bit of a laughing stock, and the interviews with the employees hadn't turned up anything. But then, like a week after the Mona Lisa was stolen, investigators figured out exactly who'd done it. How? Well, twas a young French poet named... Can't wait to hear this name.

Just take a shot, Kristen. From downtown. Guillame Apollonair. Okay. Guillame Apollonair. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Your cheekbones go all the way back to your ears when you try to say that name.

What? That doesn't make it. Wait, are my cheekbones popping when I try to speak French? Like a bubble rat dolphin. Oh, my God. We have to move to France, and I have to try to speak French so that I can finally have cheekbones. Yeah. He'd once said that the Louvre should be burned down.

So he was suspect one. So they're just, because he's just a hater? Well, no, hang on. I'm about to tell you more. I have to tell you who else they suspected. It was his little buddy, a not so well-known artist by the name of Pablo Picasso. Ever heard of him? Yeah.

Did he hate the Louvre, too? I don't think so. Now, hang. Hang on, hang on, I can see you're getting a little agitated. And that's because you're kind of sniffing out the truth, which is police didn't actually have any real evidence against Apollonair or Picasso. Instead, what they had was the knowledge that Apollonair and Picasso were friends with a guy named Honoré Joseph Gary Piero.

Okay. And who was, I'm not even going to try to attempt to say this name. Who was he, Kristen? Police had recently learned that Honoré had shown up at a local newspaper and sold them a statue that he had stolen from the Louvre. And while he was there, he bragged to them that he'd also stolen other statues from the Louvre and given them to his fancy friends. And as soon as investigators heard that, they were like, okay, this brazen douchebag. just might be the guy who took the Mona Lisa. They're saying, if he's stealing statues, then...

Yeah, why not? It's a slippery slope. Uh-huh. And he's taking paintings. Oops, all paintings, he just slipped on in. Yeah. They began looking into his friend group and noticed that he and Apollonair and Picasso

all shared three-way BFF necklaces. So they were like, aha, we got them! These are the dudes who stole the painting. Round them up! Wow, they have friendship bracelets. Necklaces, don't be ridiculous. I was going to make a top seven Myspace joke, too, but, you know. Uh-huh.

As you have probably already guessed, they actually weren't the ones who stole the Mona Lisa. Shocking. There's no evidence. Hey, hey, hey. We just got a feeling. Just a hunch. That's all we need. But they weren't entirely innocent either.

Because, you know, Apollo had purchased some stolen statues. from Honoré, and he knew that they had been stolen from the Louvre because they had like the little stamp on the bottom. And also, I don't think Honoré was really, you know, shy about the fact that he'd been stealing from the Louvre. They had like the little label maker sticker property of the Louvre on the bottom. I'm not kidding. They did.

Yeah. And then Apollonair had turned around and given two little statues to Picasso. And Picasso had then used those little statues as a. models for his 1907 painting. Let them ourselves de al-a-na. Wow, fascinating. I love la de la de, I don't even know what you said. We all do.

Let demisels de al-a-a-o-na. Excellent. If you haven't seen that painting, let me save you the time, because you definitely can't Google it based on what I just said. No. It looks like a whole mess of naked ladies as reflected through a fun house mirror with an edible arrangement at their feet. Okay, so that's what we're dealing with here. Okay, I'm going to Google Picasso Naked Ladies Fun House Mirror.

1907. Edible arrangement at their feet. I don't think that's going to pop up what we need. It does. Okay, am I amazing at describing art or am I super amazing at it? It's the first result. Good job, Kristen. For real. Wow. Okay. You should be a tour guide in an art museum. Can you imagine?

Picasso said that this was his first example of cubism and wanted us to all be so charmed by the fact that if you look closely at the naked lady's ears, they bear a striking resemblance to the stolen statues. And I want Picasso to know that the Louvre allowed artists to come in and sketch whatever they wanted. So he should have just shown up at the Louvre like everybody else and made his little cube art right there. I'm looking at this painting in the ears. Yeah. What do you mean the ears? Yeah. This one lady is like spread eagle on this in this painting.

Do you need a moment? She's all smooth like a Ken doll, though, down there. How does she compare to your Jessica Simpson post? which we can all agree is also art. Oh. It was a very special poster, Kristen. My sister got it for me. Yeah.

Is that weird? No, no. It's just a shame that it got all that water damage. Anyway, the point is that even though Apollinaire and Picasso... What kind of joke is that? What do you mean water damage? They didn't help steal the Mona Lisa. Just ignoring my question, huh?

I think the joke stands for itself. All right. Yeah, whatever. Even though they didn't help steal the Mona Lisa, they did both have stolen artifacts from the Louvre in their possession. And now investigators were eyeballing them for this crime. But they have no evidence. Right, they're just being eyeballed.

A stakeout. So, on midnight of September 5th, 1911, Apollonier and Picasso loaded their stolen goods into a suitcase with the plan of sneaking over to the River Sin and dumping their booty overboard. Why not just bring them back to the Louvre? Right. Noddy boys. I agree. They actually had a nickname.

I thought this was stupid, so I didn't include it. They were called the Wild Men of Paris. I hate it. Why do you hate that? Because it just seems like you might as well be the big douchebags of Paris. Okay. Anyhow, as legend has it, Picasso simply could not bring himself to throw those stolen statues into the river. Now, what happened next was a bit of a mess because both of them were brought in for interrogations,

and even though they had reputations for being macho, macho man, they both cried like babies under the pressure. Picasso cried? Oh, yeah! Oh, like a baby! Oh, please go! I'm a wild man of Paris. Yeah. What happened to the wild men of Paris?

They were in full swing, as you like to say. They sure were. Tossing statues into the river. Now, Normie, see, they did go on trial, and it was more of a mess. A polonair confessed everything. Yes, I had the stolen statues. I knew it was wrong. I'm a bad boy.

Spank me. And Picasso just got up there, cried some more, and was like, I've actually never met a polonair. I actually don't know anything about anything. Man, no respect for him. Oh, it was so ridiculous. And finally, a judge was just like, okay, I am throwing this case out. You two please clean yourselves up.

This man can't stop crying. You clearly did not steal the Mona Lisa. All right, goodbye. Yeah, I was going to say, okay, they confessed the statues, but... Yeah, there's no evidence that they took the Mona Lisa. Yeah. So, Picasso. and a polonier were off the hook.

Weeks past. Then months. Two years past. Holy shit. And they have no idea where the Mona Lisa is? Not a clue, darling. In the early days, they tried to, like, seal off France, and they were, like, checking cruise ships. Seal off France?

Yeah, they were trying to, like, stop it from leaving France, but at a certain point, you just got to accept that she's gone. I'm going to wait for a helpful tip. Did they have a hotline? Call this number, if you know anything. Our best security guards are standing by. In December of 1912, the Louvre put up a new painting in Mona Lisa's place. Sonic Pregnant. And people said, you know, it's not bad.

You know what? Kind of like this more than the Mona Lisa. The weird thing about it is I feel like pregnant Sonic is looking at me. right in the eyes, no matter where I stand in this room. Yeah. It's eerie. It's really something special. It makes you think, I wonder who impregnated Sonic.

It makes you think, huh, I always thought Sonic was kind of a dude. I don't know. Oh, well. Uh-huh. They'd accepted that they'd never get the Mona Lisa back. A group of wealthy French folks put together a reward or a reward, which is what a normal person says. Yeah, you were saying the French way. For anyone who came forward with information that led to the Mona Lisa's return.

How much were they putting up here? Oh, I can't remember. I think it was 25K. All the croissants you can eat. But no one came forward. Newspapers offered rewards. But no one came forward. And then...

Oh. Something happened. Oh, what happened? On November 29th, 1913, an Italian art dealer, named Alfredo Jerry God a straight Alfredo Jerry? Yeah.

That sounds like a character on the Sopranos. Yeah, go talk to Alfredo Jerry. He'll hook you up. Get these DVD players moving to Hoboken or whatever. Alfredo Jerry's got them. Take Karen's last Zidi with you.

Was his name really Alfredo Jerry? Yeah, G-E-R-I. I think it sounds a lot less stupid when you say it more like Jerry or I don't know when you're I mean Jerry Jerry's just spelled a little differently yeah Alfredo Jerry yes and he's a very serious man okay this is so funny okay so Alfredo Jerry who was a real man and not a cartoon character yeah got a strange letter in the mail it was postmarked from Paris he opened it to find a letter from a man calling himself Leonardo.

Leonardo wrote that he was in possession of the Mona Lisa. And that since Leonardo da Vinci had been Italian, it seemed fitting that the Mona Lisa should go back to Italy. Alfredo Jerry was immediately skeptical. So he called his friend Linguini Tom? That was stupid. He regularly placed ads in the newspaper saying that he wanted to buy Italian art. and that sometimes brought out some weirdos or pranksters out of the woodwork.

Well, and you would definitely think this was a joke because it's like, it's the Mona Lisa. Mm-hmm. I can't buy that. It's... Some random guy calling himself Leonardo says he's got it. Now Mr. Alfredo knew that it had been stolen, though, right? Well, yeah, everybody knew it had been stolen. And this guy's a big player in the art world.

Everyone knew. Okay. So he figured that this letter had to be a joke. In fact, he almost threw it away, but a friend told him, maybe you ought to answer it just to be safe. So he wrote back. That was Linguini Tom that told him that, right? It was actually a lasagna, Larry.

This is so offensive. It's fine. I'm Italian. I accept these offensive things. And that's fine because I am married to an Italian dude. Yeah. Uh-huh. There we go.

We are the world. Look, what do people expect us to do with a name like Alfredo, Jerry? Are we supposed to just let that lie? No. I can't let that go. We are human. So he wrote back saying essentially, okay, if you got the Mona Lisa, go ahead and bring it to me in Florence. I'm interested.

And then he waited. And on the evening of December 10th, 1913, Alfredo was at his shop, which coincidentally wasn't too far from where Leonardo Da Vinci had painted the Mona Lisa several hundred years earlier. Pretty cool fact. And all of a sudden, a dude walks in. He was short, kind of intense. He said his name was Leonardo. He told Alfredo that he was the guy who he'd been corresponding with. He said that he was in possession of the Mona Lisa. He'd taken it out of the Louvre himself, and he'd be happy to return it. He just confessed. I stole this. Yeah. And he confessed it to a well-known art dealer?

Yeah. Well, that's just stupid. Wrong and rude. What do you mean? This art dealer is going to make sure that this is the real Mona Lisa, so he's going to ask some questions. How do you know it's real? How do you know it's not a fake? And the guy says, because I took it from the Louvre myself, lifted it right off the wall, walked out with it.

Yeah, but he's going to get caught now. Yeah, baby. Well, definitely. So he's like, yeah, I've got the Mona Lisa. I'm happy to return it to Italy. That is my only motive. But also, I wouldn't mind getting 500,000 lira for my time. That's just to cover my expenses, you know.

That's just my expenses. Mileage. Adjusted for inflation. That's like $3 million. A bargain, honestly, for the Mona Lisa. Yeah. What do you think the Mona Lisa would fetch today? It's, oh, God, I didn't.

If the Louvre was hard for cash. And they're like, we're going to sell the Mona Lisa. Okay, so I looked this up several days ago. So my memory's a little fuzzy. But I believe it holds the Guinness World Record for the highest appraised value of any painting. Uh-huh. I think it is now valued at like a billion. Holy shit.

Yeah. So Alfredo agreed to pay the money. He thought it was a good deal. And at that, Leonardo told Alfredo to come to his hotel the next day and get the painting. And Alfredo agreed, but he said he wanted to bring someone with him. And that someone was a very big deal in the art world. He wanted to bring his friend Giovanni Pogi, the director of the Ophizi Gallery. I said that quite well.

Yeah, very good. It seemed like you weren't going to compliment me, so sometimes I have to compliment myself. Sometimes he got to set out that line and fish. I'm looking pretty good today, don't you agree? The Ofizi Gallery is one of Italy's top museums. It has an incredible collection of art from the Italian Renaissance. So if anyone was going to be able to tell the difference between the real Mona Lisa and a fake, it would probably be Giovanni Pogi. So the next day, Leonardo met with Giovanni and Alfredo at the Uffizi Gallery.

And from there, Leonardo took them to his two-star hotel. A two-star hotel. The hotel is still around today. Oh. It is now called La Geoconda, and it still has bad reviews. It is still a two-star hotel. G-I-O-C-O-N-D-A, La Geoconda, and it's in Florence. Hotel La Geoconda.

It says permanently closed on Google. Uh-oh. 2.3 out of 5. Ooh, let me read a review. Boy, it had a good run. I wonder when it closed. This hotel has no pros. Dirty, very damaged carpets.

Probably never even washed. Cold in the rooms at night. Unpleasant smell of mold when entering the room. Terrible showers. Very uncultured. Screaming owner. Oh, God. Tragically expensive Wi-Fi.

Okay. But would you stay there if you knew that the Mona Lisa had once been in the hotel? Is that enough for you? Maybe not for some folks. Well, I don't think they advertise it, but it's closed now. I would advertise the hell out of it. There'd be a Mona Lisa in every room. There's a restaurant in Kansas City with a little plaque by the urinal that claims that Alcapone pissed in that urinal.

Yeah. And this is kind of the same thing. It's like the Mona Lisa was in this room one time. That's enough for me. Sure. You know I love a good plaque. Giovanni and Alfredo later admitted that they were nervous about going to the hotel. But Leonardo didn't seem nervous at all. He took them to his room on the third

floor, and once they were all in the room, they were like, oh my gosh, the Wi-Fi is so tragically expensive here. And Leonardo locked the door and pulled out a trunk from under the hotel bed. He opened it. He took a few things out of it, a mandolin, a pair of pliers, a really ugly hat, some broken in shoes. Wait, he had shit on top of the Mona Lisa? Some paint brushes. Once the trunk was completely empty. Huh, talking about junk in the trunk. Hey. He pulled up what had been a false bottom. Beneath it lay an object, wrapped in red silk. He pulled it out and revealed it to the men. It was the Mona Lisa. It was beautiful. It had been missing for more than two years, but Here it was, undamaged.

It still had the Louvre stamp on the back. Can you imagine seeing that? No. Not at all. I feel like, holy shit. You're in some shitty hotel. With tragically bad Wi-Fi. Expensive.

They didn't say it was bad quality, just too expensive. Oh, right. Well, thank God it was in a false bottom, because I was like, is this guy just stacking shit on the Mona Lisa? So it sounds like he protected it pretty well then. Yeah. Yeah. So he respects art.

Alfredo and Giovanni tried to stay calm. They told the man that they needed to take the painting back to the Ophizi Gallery to have it authenticated. And the man agreed. And so the three of them wrapped the painting back up in red silk and made their way down to the hotel lobby. And they just wanted to get back to the gallery as quickly as possible. But the hotel concierge spotted the three men with one. what was clearly a painting. And he's like, whoa!

Hey! Oh, what are you doing? You're trying to steal our art? No, that's a little offensive, testing. Sorry. And the three guys were like, oh, shit. The last thing they wanted was for someone to realize that they were holding what had become the most famous painting in the world. So they tried to kind of wiggle out of the situation.

Like, hey, yeah, bye. But the concierge was insistent. And so finally they showed the dude the Mona Lisa. And he was like, So he wouldn't let him leave until he saw the art? Well, he thought they were stealing some of the crappy motel art off the wall. Oh, I see. So then they showed him the Mona Lisa.

And the guy was like, oh, okay, that's not one of ours. All right, go ahead. No, yep. Nope, that's not footprints on a beach. That's not our live, laugh, love sign. Yeah. So the three men went back to the Ophizi Gallery. And it was there that Giovanni,

Donnie did a more intense examination. It's funny, he wasn't really looking at the artwork itself. He was looking at the cracks. The real Mona Lisa had a little crack in the upper left part of the painting. It also had a unique pattern of cracks in the paint. Or as the French say, crackleur. Croccalure is a dead giveaway for a painting's age. It's the series of tiny cracks in the varnish of a painting or cracks in the

paint itself. Giovanni knew that a really, really good forger could create crack-a-lure in an attempt to make the work look older, but he also knew that it'd be impossible to create that exact same pattern that was found in the real Mona Lisa. So he compared the red silk-wrapped Mona Lisa to a high-quality photo of the original Mona Lisa, and he was stunned. What he'd believed in the hotel room was confirmed. This wasn't a forgery. This was the real thing. So what's he going to do? I don't know. That's where the story stops. I think they just went and got a pizza. You know what? I'm just trying to help with the flow of this podcast. I'm sorry. I'm not actually like, I know you're going to tell us, Kristen, but. Is there trouble in the Caruso household?

Trouble is a brewing, folks. Storms are brewing. But now Alfredo and Giovanni had another problem. They had the real Mona Lisa. Now they just needed to get this little Leonardo fellow away from it. Yeah, but he wants three million bucks, right? Yes. I'm sorry, I just belched instead of answered, uh, yes. Yeah. So, what are they going to do? Okay, somehow they convinced the little mysterious man that he should leave the Ophizi Gallery without the Mona Lisa. They told him to just leave it with them and that if he'd just hang tight in Florence for a while, they would make sure that the Italian government paid him what he was owed. Leonardo was a little hesitant. He was like, hey, you know, staying in Florence isn't cheap. And they were like, oh, yeah, we know it definitely isn't. And that's why we're going to make

sure you get paid very quickly. Just, you know. And I got a great pullout couch in my living room. You could stay with me, buddy. So they got him out of there. Wow. They thanked him. him for his patriotism. Oh, yeah, you did this because you love Italy. Okay, bye-bye. Bye. And they called the authorities. Yeah, like the second that the mysterious little man left the gallery, Giovanni and Alfredo called the police. And in no time, police arrived at the man's hotel room, knocked on his door. And when he answered the door to two policemen, he was stunned. I've been betrayed. By my new friends. And he was even more stunned. when they arrested him.

But the stuns kept on coming, Norm. Because apparently when the Italian parliament found out that Italy was now in possession of the Mona Lisa, a few members of parliament were like, should we keep it? Okay. I was actually, I was thinking about this. Uh-huh. How does a museum get to decide this is going to be in our museum? Like, how did the Louvre get the Mona Lisa and how were they able to just,

Keep it. So the story there is that Leonardo da Vinci spent the last few years of his life in France. And he sold the Mona Lisa to a French king. I've got him in my notes, but, you know. Okay. A French king. Another way that people get stuff in their museums is, yeah, they steal art. They steal it, yeah.

Napoleon gets a little red wagon, just loads it up full of, Italian Renaissance art. A red writer. It takes it back to France. Red radio flyer. What would be the French word for radio flyer, Chris? And your French is so good. Oh, yeah.

Curious if you could change it. Radio flage. Radio flora. Wow. Yeah, beautiful. Well, and that's a big problem even in modern times is like British museums have a lot of stolen artifacts from like the Egyptians. Yeah. They sure do.

And so a lot of these countries are like, hey, can we have that back, please? Yeah. It's a real problem. It is a real problem. Mm-hmm. Because now you've got this museum and do you do the right thing and give it back? I don't know. I don't know what the current status is of all that, but I just know it's a being talked about right now.

Yeah. But with the Mona Lisa, if Leonardo da Vinci sold the Mona Lisa to this king, then, you know, it was the game. Kings. Like the artist, artist sold his piece, you know. Here's another factor. Okay. Diplomacy. Oh, well, yeah, definitely.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. So. Especially during this time. Yes. Ultimately, they decided that, you know, the right-ish thing, but also the definitely diplomatic thing to do would be to return it to France.

Right. Let's not ruffle any. rooster feathers. That's right. Isn't that the official animal of France? A rooster? Is it? I think it's on their coat of arms or something.

I thought that was the weirdest thing that just came out of your mouth and I was like, just go with it, Kristen. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Rooster France significance. The rooster is the national emblem of France and symbolizes the French people, courage, and bravery. Oh, okay. Well done, Norm.

Pat on my own back. So on December 12th, 1913, the Italian government announced that they had the Mona Lisa and that they'd be returning it to the Louvre. But first, they took the Mona Lisa on a little victory dance through all of Italy. Like, hey, we got it. Come see it. You want to see it? Everybody wants to see it. Sell tickets. So roughly a month later, on January 4th, 1914, the Mona Lisa at long last was placed back on its familiar four hooks in the Louvre. They're not going to bolt it this time. You know what?

I actually am realizing I said four hooks. Hopefully they changed it up a little. We're adding two more hooks, six hooks now. Because we're pretty sure the thief wouldn't have gotten away with it if there'd been two more hooks. It had been missing for nearly two and a half years by the time it came back. I can't believe they got it back. I can't either. The return of the Mona Lisa brought in a trove of looky-loos.

People came in from all over to see the painting that had received worldwide acclaim. But they weren't just interested in the painting. They wanted to know about the man who'd taken it. Who was he? What had his motive been? Had he tried to fuck the thing? Did he have a splinter? Well, his real name was Vincenzo Perugia.

He was a 32-year-old Italian man and a former employee of the Louvre. What did he do at the Louvre? I'm about to tell you. Oh, okay. And it's going to be ridiculous. Okay. He'd worked there from October of 1910 to January of 1911, and he'd been part of a crew that built protective glass boxes for some of the paintings. In fact, he'd worked on the glass box that surrounded the Mona Lisa.

Vincenzo had been born in Italy in 1881. he'd come to France when he was 25, hoping to become an artist, but instead he found work painting houses. Life hadn't quite worked out how he'd hoped. Vincenzo had a criminal record. In 1908, he'd gone to jail for attempting to rob a sex worker. But, you know, she smacked the shit out of him, so that didn't work out so well. Did she really?

Mm-hmm. Less than a year later, he went to prison for, according to an article in Smithsonian Magazine, carrying a gun during a fist fight. I saw something else that said he'd been caught stealing pipes, so who knows what this guy was up to. This guy and all sorts of old-timey crimes. Carrying a gun in a fist fight,

was that like considered a dishonorable thing, so you get charged for it? I'll be honest, I didn't know that that was a thing that you could be charged for, and that's why I, you know, cited the source again there. Well, you know, we have asked the history,

to look into this Smithsonian magazine as you're calling it. I don't actually think there's anything wrong with this article. Interesting. Vincenzo's brothers referred to him as a madman. He had a chip on his shoulder, which he attributed to how he'd been treated when he moved to France. He said that the French had discriminated against him. He said they'd stolen from him.

They'd called him macaroni, and they'd poured salt in his wine. And later, when he got that job at the Louvre, he claims he got really angry that this beautiful painting from the Italian Renaissance was hanging in France. He said that when he was working at the museum, he learned that Napoleon had stolen works of art from the countries he'd conquered. And France had no right to the Mona Lisa. And yet there it sat in France. So he's just an Italian patriot. That's what he says.

Yeah. I'm not buying that. Again, we know that technically the Mona Lisa was not stolen. But, you know, Vincenzo didn't have access to Wikipedia. I just burped. You did? Is this a thing? Are we both burping up a storm over here?

Okay. I thought we were professionals. Oh, absolutely not. That's why we're a small independent sexy podcast. No one else would happen. No one signing us up for anything. So, yeah, according to Vincenzo, he just got. so mad that he decided he needed to steal something.

That's wild. I'm not buying that, but... What do you think was his motive? Money. Yeah. Yeah, you make money. Are you ready to hear how he says he did it? Yes. Okay. That Monday, when the museum was closed, he dressed up as a workman, you know, put on his little smock. He entered through an open side door, went to the salon, Carre, where the Mona Lisa hung, took it off the wall, walked out of the room,

went to the service staircase, took the glass case off the painting, and removed its frame. Then he covered the painting with his smock, and he went to the nearest door. But uh-oh, it was locked. He was unscrewing the doorknob when someone came up behind him. He turned. He panicked. But he recognized the guy. It was a former co-worker.

So, very calmly, Vincenzo said something like, some idiot locked this door and the guy was like oh okay no worries I got a key and he unlocked it and so Vincenzo walked out but he had one last gate to get through what's wrong the police didn't get this story when they

asked all the employees no that guy that unlocked the door didn't mention this at all again this is his version of what happened okay all right maybe it's true maybe it's not I'm just telling you what he's Something you might want to say.

Unless you're like, oh, shit, I'm going to get in huge trouble. I'm going to pretend that didn't happen. Yeah, that's a good point. So Vincenzo walked out, but he had one last gate to get through. He wasn't feeling good. He'd have to talk to a concierge and get that person to open the gate for him. Oh, my gosh, what's he going to say? And how is he hiding the painting exactly?

It's pretty awkward. Does his body look like a big rectangle right now? So that's the thing people always talk about is he was a small guy. Yeah. And again, the Mona Lisa was small, but not super small. It's a 30 by 21, right? Right. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's like half of his height.

So the thinking is he covered it with his smock. What's a smock? Remind me. It's like, you know, kind of a white kind of overcoat workers thing. Hmm. Okay. So he's just sweating going up to this gate. But on that particular day, no one was guarding the gate.

Oh, my God. So he just walked off with the Mona Lisa. He took it to his one-bedroom apartment and kept it hidden there for two years. That is just wild, if that's what actually happened. I think if it's not exactly what happened, I think it's pretty damn close. Yeah, I mean, you're probably right. It's one of those like Occam's Razor things where it's like, Yeah, probably the simplest explanation is the truth.

And so, yeah, he probably just walked in and took it and then left because no one was guarding. Yeah, and he knew that it would be easy because he'd worked there. Yeah. He claimed he'd acted alone with the sole goal being to return an Italian masterpiece back to Italy. But his story changed a lot as he awaited trial. The funny thing is he never tried to say that he was innocent. But he did change some smaller details, like how exactly he'd fled the scene and which doors he'd tried to open when he'd arrived at the museum. You know, did he hide overnight in a broom closet?

We don't know. A lot of people take those changes to mean that Vincenzo might have been covering up for a couple of co-conspirators. In fact, some sources even name his potential co-conspirators as two brothers, Vincenzo and Michelle Lancelotti. but neither of them ever faced charges for the crime. Another factor that might explain some of his behavior is that he was believed to have suffered from lead poisoning, which I didn't have to tell you. That's right. I remembered that. A court-appointed psychiatrist examined Vincenzo and declared him mentally deficient.

You got to think the paint back then, if he was painting houses, that paint was probably like pure lead. Sure. Well, and I feel like I read somewhere that like those house painters were given time off for lead poisoning. Oh, wow. They'd get so sick. Yeah. Like employers understood how dangerous it was. So they're like, yeah, take a few weeks off, get the lead poisoning out of you.

And then they would come back and work. Yeah. Wow. Almost treating it more like burnout than. Yes. It's like an understood thing that. The paint was doing this to them. And now we know today, you know, lead is banned from pretty much everything.

Now we just use the raccoon anal glands. And nothing's wrong. Well, it's all natural. Hey, I mean, uh, Shalak, which is one of my favorite finishes to put on a wood project is made from like beetle poo. We still use that today. All natural, baby. Lead paint, delicious but deadly. Is that a Simpsons?

It is a Simpsons joke. So court-appointed psychiatrist decides he's mentally deficient. Okay. In one documentary where they talked to the grandchildren of a lot of the people who are involved in this, the grandchild of the psychiatrist said, he was really sympathetic to this guy. So maybe he played that up. Okay.

Another source, the thing is, like the original source was in Italian, so I'm relying on a translation. But, and I just, I can't believe that this is true, but let's, let's, let me tell you. Okay. The story I heard was that the psychiatrist asked him kind of a riddle to determine whether he was mentally deficient. Are you ready to take this test? Oh, I'm ready. Okay.

A little nervous, but, okay, what's the riddle? There are two birds in a tree. Okay. A hunter comes up and shoots one dead. How many birds are in the tree? There are two birds in a tree. A hunter comes up and shoots one of the birds dead. Yep.

How many birds are in the tree? Well, if we're assuming the bird fell from the tree after it was shot, there would be one bird left. Okay. Norm, you, much like myself, are mentally deficient. Oh, no. What's the answer? Because the answer is, if you fire a shot, you shoot one bird, The other bird isn't going to hang out in the tree waiting.

Oh, it'll fly away. Oh, man. Well, wait, okay. That was very humbling, wasn't it? I was like, oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, gosh. I guess I can get away with anything because I'm so mentally deficient.

That's a good riddle. But what if he shot the bird and it didn't fall out of the tree? It just kind of slumped over. Like, it clutched its chest. Ah! You know, it was like screaming in the tree against the trunk. I don't think you know much about birds. This is like if a bird was a main character in a movie.

Daniel! Daniel, where are you? He flew off, you son of a bitch. If you have the video version, you're in for a good time. So, you know, who knows how much of that is true, but I think we can all agree that you and I are not up to snuff. We're mentally deficient. Damn. Okay, well.

As he awaited trial, more news trickled out about the man who'd stolen the moment. and the public started asking questions. Questions like, how the hell did the police not catch this guy? He worked at the Louvre. He'd been part of a crew that worked specifically on the Mona Lisa. He had a criminal record. You had his fingerprints. Well, wait, he wasn't working at the Louvre at the time it was stolen, though.

He used to work there, right? Right. But part of the investigation had been like, okay, current and former. And former, okay. So had they talked to him before? Yeah, let me tell you all about it. Oh, boy. So the simple answer is that when police interrogated him, and they did, he just believed his story.

He said he didn't know anything. He said he had no idea that the Mona Lisa had been stolen. He'd only found out about it when he read it in the newspaper. The police were like, okay, thanks. Later, when an officer came to inspect Vincenzo's apartment, the officer just didn't do a super thorough job. I mean, having a false bottom on a trunk is pretty clever. I agree. I'm also kind of like, you know, they're talking to hundreds of people.

Yeah. And you're going and inspecting a bunch of places. How thoroughly are you going to inspect each place? You have to think that someone who's stolen the Mona Lisa, they're not just going to have it propped up over the bathtub or something. You know, they're going to have it hidden away. No, they're expecting to walk in. and there's one of those, you know, black-bordered poster frames and Mona Lisa is just sitting in it, you know.

Yeah. That's what my Jessica Simpson poster was in. Oh, you had it framed? Absolutely, I had it framed. That thing wasn't just taped to the wall? No. I framed all of my art. Did you pay to have that framed?

No, I was like one of those cheap Walmart poster frames. Okay. That was like six bucks. Sure. Because posters are standard size, you know, like 24 by 36. There was nothing standard about that Jessica Simpson poster. Nothing. And we can all agree.

Very special. So one documentary said that Vincenzo had hid the Mona Lisa face down in this like cubby thing where he kept firewood. So the officer had looked in there and just saw a bunch of wood and didn't pull out every piece to examine it. Okay. There were some other stories. I think some of them sound ridiculous to me. one was that he had it hidden in his table somehow and that the officer had like filled out a report while leaning on that very table that secretly contained the Mona Lisa. Blow it out your ass.

That's from the TV movie. Yeah. Had to spice up the story a little bit. And of course, you know, they had his fingerprints on file, but they'd only taken prints from people's right hands. And the print he had left on the frame had been from his left hand. Yeah. Vincenzo Perugia's trial began on June 4th, 1914, in Florence, in front of a three-judge panel. He's being tried in Italy?

Yeah. Now, why is that? France didn't try to extradite him. So he was living in Italy again. Living is an interesting word. I mean, he was arrested in Italy. So, yeah, he was living in the jail. This is address.

This is my home. This is my home address. Okay. I just figured the crime took place in France. So I thought they would try him. Yeah. I mean, you would think that they would extradite, but I guess maybe the French were so thrilled with getting the Mona Lisa back. And, you know, maybe a trial might bring out all of their failings with the security.

What are you looking up right now? World War I had not officially started yet because I was going to say, was France maybe a little busy at that time? No, plenty of time. Plenty of time. Plenty of time to extradite if they wanted to. Vincenzo told the court that he did this because he was patriotic. I'm sorry for being so patriotic. I might work on the Italian judges.

I'm sorry I've got on my American flag boxer shorts. He would wear Italian boxer shorts. I know. I'm just saying what I'm wearing. He wanted the Mona Lisa to hang in the Ophizi Gallery in Italy. That's all he wanted. Yeah, and $3 million. He hadn't picked the Mona Lisa because of its perceived value.

No, he'd picked it because it was relatively small and easy to transport. He said, the only thing I had in mind was to give a gift to Italy, and I didn't intend to make any money off of it. Well, then why didn't he just give it to Italy? Yeah, the judges didn't take too kindly to his bullshit. They were like, if you didn't want money, then why did you ask the art dealer for five, 500,000 lira. His travel cost, Kristen, duh.

And oh, by the way, we know that you tried to sell this painting to an English art dealer a year ago. You did it all for the money. Well, wait a minute. Where's this English art dealer coming from? This is new to me. Yeah. What's the deal with that? As part of the investigation, they found out, he had tried to sell the Mona Lisa to a pretty well-known British art dealer.

but the art dealer had laughed at him and didn't think he was serious. That's okay. So that's why he didn't tell anyone. He's like, this is a joke. So until that point, Vincenzo had been pretty calm, but that accusation really got him mad. So he said, me? I offered to sell the Mona Lisa to the English. Who says so?

It's false. And one of the judges had to be like, dude, you're the one who said it. You admitted it during one of your interrogation. Oh, man. Was he representing himself? No, but, you know, I think he talked too much. Vincenzo didn't have much to say in response. He'd been caught in his own lie.

So instead, he was like, whatever, that British dude didn't take me seriously. Plus, I really wanted it to go to Italy. I swear. He changed his tune real quick. Look at my boxer shorts. I mean, he could have, like, left it on the doorstep of the prime minister's house and knocked and ran away. Left it. Well, if he wanted to give it as a gift and not let anybody know he did it.

That's true. Yeah, you know in the movies when they leave a baby on the porch. I do know. You know, it would be just like that. Poor and rain, thunderstorm. You leave the Mona Lisa right there. It is always in a thunderstorm, isn't it? Yeah, and the person always has like a hood on.

Yeah. They're leaving their baby. Yeah. Well, that's sad. I know. It was in the Super Mario Brothers movie. Dear God. It was.

It was like the opening scene. Oh, my God. Okay, thank you for that. A judge also pointed out that Vincenzo had bragged in letters to his family that he was about to be rich. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. So, but money wasn't. Yeah. He actually would have gotten rich from just happy Italian citizens who wanted to thank him.

They were going to donate money. Yeah. The letters were pretty damning. They were like, he didn't say, I've got the Mona Lisa, but it was like, I'm going to be super rich soon. It's going to come in all one fell swoop. Don't worry, I'll take care of you. What is good. Yeah, I just read the secret.

I've got money on my mind. It is happening. It's coming, baby. And in response, Vincenzo was like, romantic words, Your Honor. Just romantic words. I'm just a very romantic man. In closing arguments, Vincenzo's defense attorney argued that, hey, no one's mad at Vincenzo. He didn't hurt anybody.

The painting has been returned. and now relations between France and Italy are better than ever. So he's actually a peacemaker. He's bringing countries together. Norm, you laugh, but the spectators in the court applauded. What? Yeah. No, that sounds like one of those that didn't happen stories.

Like, everyone stood and cheered. I believe it. I think people were on his side. Really? He stole the Mona Lisa for most. money. But he's talking shit on France. Uh-huh.

You think the Italians are on his side? Well, yeah, it was Italians in the, in the courtroom. This is the benefit to not being extradited. Yeah. The next day, Vincenzo was sentenced to how much time do you think he got? Two months. Two months. They're on his side.

He kept the Mona Lisa for two years. Okay, so. What kind of? Imprison him for every day he kept the Mona Lisa. So, two months. years. It gave him one year and 15 days in prison. As he left the courtroom, Vincenzo said, Worth it. It could have been worse. Yeah, I mean, that's honestly not bad. To my American ears, I am shocked. I am shocked. When I told this story on my old decrepit podcast, as you call it,

I said, old decrepit rotting podcast. Thank you. I said, if this happened in America, we'd stick a boot up your ass and I stand by it. I mean... As you sit there with your American flag underwear. We are ridiculous. I mean, we lock people up. And yeah, I just, I can't believe that he got a year in 15 days. I'm not mad about it necessarily, but I'm shocked.

You think it should be way longer? I, you know, it's not necessarily that because I think we could learn a lot from other countries about not locking people up for really, really long periods of time, especially when what they've done is nonviolent. Sure. That's fair. This feels like elevated because it's the Mona Lisa, though. Yeah.

It's one thing to steal your neighbor's lawnmower, but it's another to steal the Mona Lisa, which is a one-of-a-kind, priceless piece of art that the public enjoys. Sure. No, it's part of, it's very cultured. Well, and a lot of really creepy dudes were devastated. They were like, what am I going to look at now? Yeah, what am I going to jerk my little ding-dong to?

On appeal, his sentence was reduced to just seven months, and he was released immediately because he'd already served that time. Wow. Public reaction to Vincenzo's trial was pretty interesting. A lot of people found him very sympathetic. They figured, hey, maybe he had been. patriotic. Or maybe he'd done it for the money. He did it. He did it for the money. Yeah. But they basically figured either way, he hadn't harmed the Mona Lisa.

And that was my first thought when you said it was wrapped in red silk and in like a false bottom. I was like, wow. So he really respects this painting. As much as you would protect it that way. any valuable stolen good that you're trying to get a lot of money for. Yeah, but I was really worried when he was pulling stuff out of his trunk like Mary Poppins' purse. You're like, it's the broken shoe on top of the Mona Lisa. Yeah, there's going to be like freaking Easy Mac on the Mona Lisa or something, you know. This cleans right off.

Yeah, the chocolate bar. Uh-huh. Yeah, I mean, they felt like, okay, he didn't harm the painting. I did see something that's, said that there was a little, a little difference in it, but not, I mean, nothing, nothing major. Yeah. And he also hadn't gained anything from stealing it. He tried to, but yeah, no one, no one believed him that he had it.

Yeah. I also think on the whole, it's either he was being patriotic or he wanted money. I think it can be both. I think you can want, yes, I've learned from you. Say it. Two things can be true. I think you can want the money. and also be like, these French people have been mean to me.

This will be my revenge. I sure would like this to go to a nice Italian fellow, you know? Yeah, I get it. You know what? It's like, it feels to me exactly like selling a home. Is it kind of a spite thing? A spite thing? No, what I'm saying is like when we have sold a place,

I always want it to go to someone who will appreciate it. And, you know, I always kind of wish there was some way to be like, okay, do you like that the woodwork isn't painted? Do you pledge to keep it unpainted in this historic home? You're like this kind of thing. I mean, we could have added it to the contract. I fucking wish. Why would have? Folks, we, I can't.

Go ahead and tell the history hose. Listen, our old house, which in many ways was nothing special. It was a really tiny little house. But it was more than 100 years old. and no one had ever painted the woodwork. That is special. Very beautiful woodwork. That is special that no one had painted the woodwork.

And like, we lived in it for a few years. We went antiquing. We got historic light fixtures. You got those columns. You had them stained to replace, like somebody had taken out some columns from the house. So we found the exact same ones. We put them back in. We researched the history of the home.

We did everything. And somebody bought it. Painted all the woodwork. white took down my anti i bet they fucking threw those in the trash took down those light fixtures and put in some ikea shit yeah i am ridiculous i don't oh my god it's not your it's not our house anymore christian i know it's not but there should be ruled no i get it it's sad it's sad but like it is upsetting i understand your turmoil here here's okay because My cousin Keith. He's not actually my cousin. I think he's my, he was my grandma's cousin. So what does that make us? I don't know. In Missouri, we could be married.

No one was bad an eye. But he, he is a big appreciator of historic homes. Yes. And he has always said, like, if you want the painted, you know, all the gray walls with the, you know, if you want all that, the white trim. Go move to the suburbs. Do not buy a cool old home. Yeah. And fuck it all up. Anyhow, what I was trying to say before I got very animated and distracted myself was it's kind of like that where like I want it to go to someone who will really appreciate it.

But at the end of the day, it's going to the highest bidder. And I kind of feel like that's what this guy's idea was, was like, I'm doing this for the money. I'm selling it for the money. But boy, wouldn't it be great if it could go back to Italy? If a sexy little Italian boy bought this. He didn't mention sexiness, but I'm sure it was a factor. Absolutely. So, trials over.

And people were kind of like, well, all right. And if anyone was mad about the time he got or curious about, well, were there other co-conspirators? There was simply no time to worry about that. Because Norm, I don't know if you know about this. What happened, Kristen? Well, a felon named Franz Ferdinand had just gotten assassinated. Oh, man. The Great War was a rumbling.

Stay tuned for my 35-part series on that war. Oh, my God. If you cover World War I, I will go online and I will purchase a blow-up doll with my same hair color and, you know, complexion. It would just sit at the desk. I'd be talking to a blow-up doll. It'd be funny if I realized it like halfway through it. Wait a minute.

Hold on. I just thought Kristen was bored to death by my episode. No, you thought I was an amazing listener whose mouth is wide open all the time. She was just shocked by everything I was telling her. Well, think about this. You'd get the entire year off, Kristen, if I just did a series on World War I. No, I mean, the thing is, like, I'm sure that if you went really in depth, I would enjoy it.

I'm not doing World War I, don't worry. I know. We have to get a little micro here on our topics. We can't do macro topics. Oh, we can't? It's so general to be like... I did seven episodes on Lucille Ball. That's micro.

That is a specific person. I think that's okay. But if you said, here's the history of sitcoms. I'm going to do sitcoms. Oh, dear God. That is too macro. It's way too much. I agree.

Yeah. And so, folks, I regret to inform you that you'll never hear me talk about how I met your mother. You could do the history of how I met your mother. I never even watched that show. It seems stupid to me, and I'm going with that judgment. You get even more macro. Here's the history of women. I'm actually not done with this story.

Okay. Sorry. Go on. In the years after he was released from prison, Vincenzo fought for Italy in the Great War. Ooh, woo, woo, woo. Italy was on the allied side. They sure were. Probably because of the Mona Lisa thing. That's why, you know, Italy and France were good buddies.

Honestly, probably helped. Maybe he did a good thing here. Yeah. He got married. He had a daughter. He opened a paint shop in France. Ooh. And he died in 1925 on his 44th birthday.

Mm. Likely from lead poisoning. I was assuming that, yeah. But that's not quite. where this story ends, unfortunately. Wow. Because no story about the theft of the Mona Lisa would be complete without a deeply stupid theory that morons love. Okay, here we go.

I actually do kind of like it, but I think it's stupid. Okay. A few years after Vincenzo's death and two decades after he stole the Mona Lisa, an American journalist named Carl Decker published an article in the Saturday evening post. it ran under the headline Why and How the Mona Lisa was stolen Carl's source for this article was a con artist named Eduardo Dovalfierno

Okay Definitely not a made-up man Carl claimed that the only reason he was sharing this interview was because Eduardo was now dead That had been their agreement, you see, that Eduardo would tell him the real story of how the Mona Lisa was stolen but that it could only be published after he died.

Ooh. Yep. Are you ready for the very real story? Norm, you seem a little skeptical. Should I put on my tinfoil hat for this one? Oh, yes. Grab it. Grab it. Grab it. Put it on tight.

Look at this. Uh-huh. That handle still works real well. It looks great. Just get it secured here. Uh-huh. Okay, here's a story. Eduardo was a con artist with connections to the art world.

He had a very good relationship with an art restore The Best in the Biz. Together, they hatched a plan To forge the Mona Lisa multiple times And sell those copies to very wealthy clients For a ton of money. But step one was to get the real Mona Lisa Out of the Louvre.

They couldn't just look at a photo of it? Well, no, Norm, you would be terrible in a con artist scheme. If I'm J.P. Morgan, I'm not buying the Mona Lisa from you if I know it's in the Louvre because I've seen it myself. That's a really good point. I didn't think about that. Yeah. Okay. This is why I failed that riddle about the birds.

And I'm wearing this stupid hat. Yeah. So they figured that if the Mona Lisa famously went missing, they could then sell the fake Mona Lisa to these wealthy clients who would all think that they'd just bought the real Mona Lisa off the black market. Mm-hmm. Eduardo, who was definitely a real man and not a figment of Carl Decker's imagination, went to Vincenzo Perugia and talked him into stealing the painting. He had Vincenzo work with two accomplices. So he was pulling all the strings.

That's right. Wow. And according to Eduardo, the plan worked perfectly. They sold five or six forged Mona Lisa's in the two years when the Mona Lisa was missing. But then, Vincenzo, who had been paid? handsomely for his role in this thing, blew all the money on the French Riviera like a dip shit. And then he got greedy because he knew where the real Mona Lisa was. So then he tried to sell it and then he got caught.

It's interesting that they let him keep the Mona Lisa. Yeah, I mean, here I am trying to correct a bullshit story. But it was like he knew where it was kept, which again is equally. stupid. No, why? If this guy is just some dummy you've hired, you don't say, oh, hey, hey, dummy, here's a ton of money. And by the way, here's where I'm keeping the Mona Lisa. Please, don't go get it. Do not. Don't put it in your trunk with your chocolate and easy mac. Don't do that. Eduardo claimed that when the painting was returned to the Louvre, he told all the buyers, Hey, be cool. You've got the real one.

And here's the truth, Norm. You ready for the truth? The Louvre is just embarrassed by this whole thing, so they had a copy made. But you've got the real Mona Lisa, J.P. Morgan, don't you worry. Yeah, but they sold like five or six of them, right? Right. What if all of them get together? And they're like, I've got the real one. No, I've got the real one.

Then you've got a real problem on your hands. They're going to come knocking to Eduardo. What are they going to do? Call the police. They're going to go to Eduardo. Eduardo's dead. Oh. He planned it perfectly.

Don't you agree? He said, only publish this story when I'm dead. Woo! Brilliant. So when that story hit newsstands, it got a lot of people talking. It is an amazing story. But it's been more than a hundred years since that thing allegedly happened. And there's never been any evidence to support it at all.

Well, have they checked J.P. Morgan's house? Is there a Mona Lisa in there? Oh, shit, they didn't think to do that. Yeah. They said, pull back that Jessica Simpson poster. And what you'll find is a hole in the wall and you crawl through the hole. Shawshank Redemption now. And then you find the Mona Lisa.

Wow. Anyway, that's that story. And I wish people would stop entertaining that theory because it is D-U-M-B-Dum! In his article for Slate, Simon Cooper introduced that story about the con artist and the fake Mona Lisa's by writing, The Feeling Never Quite Past that the Mona Lisa deserved a more impressive thief. And I think that that makes all the sense in the way. world. Yes, it does. Yeah, no one wants it to be that easy. No, no one wants just some dude to walk in and take it and walk out. Yeah. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. It seems beneath the Mona Lisa.

It is beneath the Mona Lisa. They want people doing somersaults and, and acrobats around lasers and, yes, you know. We want it to be Oceans 11. We want to have to have it explain to us and we want be just in awe the whole time. I was going to say jumping jacks around a laser. I was like, well, that wouldn't do anything. Actually, that would be bad. It would set the laser off, right. Some guy decides, I'm not in it for this.

He starts doing jumping jacks. You need a little workout. Yeah, I get that, totally. Yeah. And honestly, I get that people want there to be co-conspirators. And I'm not saying there weren't. But I do think it says something that he kept this quiet for two. years and that no one really suspected him. To me that that seems like, okay, one person knows.

And if they are keeping their mouth shut, the longer this can go on. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, the less people involved, the better for keeping it quiet, obviously. Yeah, I just think no one wants this to be the story. Like you said, it looks bad for the Louvre. It also, I think it's kind of unsettled. for people in general to think that something priceless and valuable that we all hold in esteem could just, you know, just some guy could walk in, pick it off the wall and leave with it. It's that easy? We don't want it to be that easy. No, absolutely not.

But it might have been exactly what happened. I think it is. And a lot of people argue that this largely forgotten art heist is the reason that the Mona Lisa will never be forgotten and the reason that there will always be a very long line to see the Mona Lisa. And that, my dear, is the story of the art heist of the Mona Lisa. Great job, Kristen. I am just fascinated. Well, you do love an art heist.

I do. Mm-hmm. God damn it, I do. This was like your gateway drug into art heists, you know? No, it wasn't. It wasn't? Oh. What was?

The Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum Norman. They just walked in there. They took all kinds of stuff. Did they get caught in two years? No. No. Didn't someone steal the screen painting? Is that still missing? I can't remember. But I did cover that on my old decrepit rotting podcast for a bonus episode so I could cover that. But that one's more recent. So I don't know if it counts as old timey. It was stolen in 1994 and 2004. Yeah, it feels offensive to me to call that old timing. But it is a good story. Eons ago. Yeah.

Great job. Can I take this hat off now? You sure can. You've heard the conspiracy theory. You believed it wholeheartedly. It's kind of like cutting into my forehead. Sharp corners. Kristen, I'm glad we were able to record today.

We survived a terrible winter storm. Okay, you joke, but this has been ridiculous. It's been pretty well. This has been the worst winter storm I've ever experienced since moving to Kansas City. And you have to understand my idea of a winter storm in North Carolina was a quarter of an inch of snow. And the whole town shuts down. The whole town's done. Yeah.

We had a snow day. Yep. I remember one time we had some like cold weather or snow, not much. And so my sister and I were walking to school. and my mom's friend drove by and rolled down the window and she was like, what are you two doing? We were like going to school and she was like, school's canceled today. And we looked around like, why?

I mean, we were thrilled. We ran home. But yeah, this winter storm, I think we got like 12 inches of snow. Are you going to tell them about the fib I told you? Oh, sure. Kristen lied to me to protect me. And I appreciate it. It was a good lie, everyone.

Okay, so this storm came on Saturday. That day, we were at my parents' house. My sister and her little family were all there. We were celebrating a belated Christmas. And we were all kind of freaked out by the storm. We knew storm was a brewing. And so we'd gotten there early, and we were going to leave early. But we kept looking out the windows.

There was no snow. No snow. It looked just totally normal outside. And we were just like, oh, maybe the storms will delay. Because our thought was, first sign of a snowflake will take off. But we didn't see anything. Well, my brother-in-law and I, well, actually, my brother-in-law's children got this gift called. Yeah, I was going to say, the gift was not for the nearly 40-year-old men, but go ahead.

Yeah, it was a wonder sphere, which is basically a small ball with a fan inside of it. And it like does wild stuff in the air. It's very fun to throw around and play with. It actually is very fun. And so my brother-in-law and I were like, hey, let's take it outside and see what it does. You can say his name. Jay, his name's Jay. Jay and I went outside with it just to see what it would be if we like, you know, toss it in the air.

Yeah. Well, we go outside and we look at the driveway and it is just like slick daddy. It is greased up with ice. Yep. And so we immediately run back inside and we're like, time to go. Everybody get your stuff. We're leaving. Yep.

So we drove home and it was bad. It was terrifying. It was, the roads were just pure ice. And I felt so, well, one, I was scared to death. Yeah. Because, like, that is the scariest part of driving in the winter is ice. And we were driving down the high. Luckily, our vehicle had four-wheel drive.

Yeah. And so we were okay, but we were on the highway. And the highway I saw up ahead was just like backed up big time. And so we decided to take an exit and go around it. And on the exit were a ton of cars on the side of the road. One was actively sliding to the side of the road. It was the slow, terrifying slide into a ditch. Yes.

Three or four of them had all wrecked together. There was one spun out in the median, another that was just hanging out. There are people abandoning their cars, walking. And I was just like, this is like the apocalypse. I was freaking out. My anxiety was sky. I was shaking. Yeah, you were shaking like a leaf.

Yes. And here's the thing, everybody, in this couple, I know that I am the worst driver. Everyone knows I am the worst driver. So I'm sitting there in the passenger seat like, okay, I cannot take over. because you had been like, we just have to get to a parking lot and stay put. And it's like, no, not with this storm getting worse, but I didn't want to argue with you. That was my goal was to get to a parking lot and survive on chef boyard decans or something. No, we had no chef boyardity.

No, there was a target right there. So I was like, we're going to live in the target for a few weeks. So I started bullshitting. I was like, you know what? I know this is pretty scary right now, but honestly, like growing up, in Kansas City. You know, we would see this, you know, every now and then. And, you know, it's really not a big deal. We've just got to drive slowly and carefully, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bullshit, bullshit. I am secretly shitting my pants. We finally got home. Okay, life is good. And the next day, you were very

sweet. You were like, hey, I, you know, thanks for talking to me yesterday. Like, I was just, I'm just not used to it. I'm so glad you're used to that. And I was like, Norman, now that we're home, now that we're safe, I can tell you, I've never seen anything like that in my life. I was terrified. Terrified. Well, I mean, I do appreciate the little white lie because it did calm me down immensely that you were just like, oh, yes, no big deal. We went through this all the time. And it really did help calm me down.

Well, okay. In a way, here's what I'd been through before. Nothing like that. And obviously, like winters in Boston were crazy. I didn't have a car in Boston. So the thing I do remember from childhood is that in situations like that, the passenger's job is to make the driver's job as smooth as possible. And if that means being like, huh, you know what, I am not terrified by this 55 car pile up we're seeing.

It's all good. That's the job. I will tell you, here's everyone. Here's how I knew exactly how scared he was. We were kind of getting out of the chaos. I thought we were kind of okay. And again, it's like the weather is crazy. It's freezing cold.

It's a mess. And we passed an Andy's frozen custard. And I said to Norm, what I thought was like the most obvious joke in the world. I was like, hey, you want to stop for some custard? And you said, didn't crack a smile, didn't even look. your hands are at 10 and 2 and you just go, no thanks, I'm not hungry. Yeah. I was white knuckling, Kristen.

I was like, I'm kidding. I was like gripping that steering wheel for dear life because in my mind, the harder you grip the steering wheel, the more control you have over it. Absolutely. Who can argue with that? Yeah. And when we got home, I wanted to jump out and kiss the ground. Yeah.

And I was really worried about our dogs, Doddian Kitt, because, you know, we had left them at home I was worried they were going to pee everywhere. Well, yeah, if we were going to live for two weeks in that target by my parents' house, sure. Minimum three weeks. The snow is still on the ground right now, and it has not warmed up enough to melt any of it. Now, they've cleared all the roads. Yeah. Kansas City actually did a great job clearing the roads.

But we're going to have this snow for a while, I think, so get cozy. Anyway, stay safe out there, everybody. Yeah. I had some more stuff for us to talk about, but this episode, episode is quite meaty. We're not two hours, 20 minutes. Oh, okay. Well, let's wrap it up. Let's wrap it up, Kristen.

And I guess I need to do that. Kristen, you know what they say about history hoes. We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the article, Who Stole the Mona Lisa by Simon Cooper for Slate. The article, Stolen, how the Mona Lisa became the world's most famous painting by James Zug for Smithsonian Magazine.

The article, Stealing Mono. Mona Lisa by Dorothy and Thomas Hubler for Vanity Fair, as well as the documentary, Mona Lisa is missing, plus a bunch of articles from newspapers.com. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok at Old Timey Podcast. Join the Reddit community, our slash old-timey podcast, and follow us individually on Instagram. I'm at Kristen Pitts-Karruso, and he's at Gaming Historian. And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio! Goodbye. Bye!