Since May 27, a former employee of the Fabbrica di San Pietro has been in Vatican prisons, arrested on charges of receiving stolen goods, extortion and fraud. The man, Alfio Maria Daniele Pergolizzi, would have tried to resell to the same Fabbrica an ancient document, a manuscript on Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which he had previously stolen, it is not yet certain whether in the Vatican or from a private collection.
The newspaper Domani writes this, recalling that the protagonist of the story, an art historian and former teacher, had been head of communications for the Vatican institution between 1995 and 2011.
On May 27, the man apparently went to the Vatican in the company of another person to meet Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the Pope’s vicar for Vatican City, archpriest of St. Peter’s and president of the ‘Fabbrica’. Subject of the conversation: the sale of a manuscript dating back to the 1600s, a sort of technical specification relating to the gold needed to decorate Bernini’s famous Baldacchino, which is currently being restored in St. Peter’s Basilica.
In reality Gambetti was setting off a ‘trap’ by showing himself interested in the purchase, indeed, by placing a check for 120 thousand euros in Pergolizzi’s hands in exchange for delivery of the manuscript.
In fact, upon leaving, the man and his companion were stopped by the gendarmes in Piazza Santa Marta, right in front of the Pope’s residence. After the first interrogation in the barracks, Pergolizzi was arrested.
Pending the continuation of the investigations and further checks – both the manuscript and the check are now in the hands of the Vatican authorities – the hypothesis of the prosecutors from across the Tiber Alessandro Diddi and Giuseppe Deodato is that the document had been stolen from the historical archive of the Fabbrica di San Pietro by Pergolizzi himself, or by someone who helped him in the operation, and now they were trying to resell it to the same Vatican institution.
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