Italian fraternity stages mock art theft after Louvre Museum heist

A student group known as the Goliardi Senesi, organizers of the Feriae Matricularum Senensium festival at the University of Siena in Italy, has gone viral for staging a prank “theft” of a painting from city hall in the wake of the Louvre Museum heist.

The group shared a video on social media Tuesday showing “thieves” in high-visibility vests carrying a large replica of Simone Martini’s Guidoriccio da Fogliano out of Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico as Mayor Nicoletta Fabio, playing along, appeared to try to stop them.

“After the uproar caused by the theft at the Louvre, the same thieves also visited Siena’s Town Hall to steal Simone Martini’s Guidoriccio!” the caption read.

“Fortunately, Mayor Nicoletta Fabio was present and promptly confronted the criminals, delaying their escape. However, they managed to evade security and take the artwork away.”

The post, which quickly drew more than 245,000 views on Facebook, earned praise for the mayor’s good-humored participation in the stunt.

The real Guidoriccio da Fogliano at the Siege of Montemassi is a fresco painted directly onto the wall of Siena’s council chamber, where it has remained since 1330, when it was painted.

The headline-grabbing heist at the Louvre Museum on October 19 ignited a global spike in attention to art and heritage crimes.

Shortly afterward, museums across Europe and beyond reported robberies: historic coins vanished from the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot in Langres, France, and a Chinese national was charged in the September theft of gold nuggets from the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Oakland Museum of California was hit by what investigators described as a “crime of opportunity,” with more than 1,000 Native American artifacts stolen from an off-site storage facility just days before the Louvre robbery.