On the eve of Italy's Ferragosto holiday, when the country turns inward and quiets, thieves moved through the MuMe museum in Messina with deliberate purpose, removing four paintings by the 15th-century Sicilian master Antonello da Messina — works so singular that their loss is felt not merely as theft, but as a wound to collective memory. The heist, timed to exploit the seasonal lull in vigilance, targeted pieces whose very fame may now become the obstacle to their sale, trapping them instead in the shadowy economies where great art becomes mere collateral. It is an old and melancholy story: t