Vatican Arrests Former Employee Allegedly Trying To Sell 17th Century Works Of Maestro Bernini Architects

Bernini's Baldacchino in St. Peter's Basilica Vatican. (Wikimedia Commons/Jorge Royan)

JAKARTA - The Vatican Police have arrested a former employee suspected of trying to sell historical manuscripts previously missing from the archives, a Vatican spokesman said.

The 18-page mission dates back to the 17th century, containing the draft Basilica altar canopy of St. Peter by Italian Barok artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, reported Reuters on June 7.

The suspect, who was arrested on May 27 on charges of attempted extortion, worked for Fabric of St. Peter, the agency responsible for conservation and maintenance of St. Peter's Basilica.

Prosecutors launched an investigation following a complaint from Fabric, before arresting the man when he brought the script back to the Vatican offering it for 120,000 euros (IDR 2,112,696,086).

Citing The independent of a statement released by the Holy Throne press office, Vatican law enforcement has basically set a trap. They launched an investigation after basilica first filed a complaint about the manuscript, and then followed negotiations for its purchase until the money actually changed hands on May 27 at the Vatican.

The Italian Domani newspaper, which reported the case on Thursday, said the origin of the manuscript and whether the manuscript ever existed in the basilica archive was still debated. The newspaper quoted an art historian, a friend of the defendant, as saying that there had been no traces of the manuscript in the basilica archive catalog since at least 1900.

Vatican prosecutors will decide next week whether he will be formally charged. He is still being held at the Vatican and has been questioned twice in recent days, the spokesman added.

It is known that the 10-story-high BADaccino is a four-pillar canopy covering the main basilica altar, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the 1620s to the 1630s to provide monumental and ceremonial covers for the graves of St. Peter under it.