On the eve of Italy's Ferragosto, when the country turns its gaze toward rest and celebration, thieves slipped through the silenced halls of Messina's MuMe museum and carried away four works by Antonello da Messina — paintings that have endured more than five centuries only to vanish into the criminal dark. The heist is a reminder that cultural patrimony, however ancient and revered, remains vulnerable to the oldest of human impulses: the desire to possess what belongs to everyone. Yet the very fame that makes these masterpieces priceless may also be what ultimately returns them to the light.