Buzz
The film The Monuments Men, directed by George Clooney, shed light on a nearly forgotten group of around 350 individuals, known as the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) unit. While Clooney's movie takes creative liberties, the tale of the Monuments Men remains unparalleled in history. For the first time, a military unit was established not to plunder or demolish art but to safeguard and restore stolen artworks to their rightful owners.
10. Frescoes Of Camposanto Monumentale
Established by President Franklin Roosevelt in the summer of 1943, the MFAA came into being after the Allies had expelled the Nazis from North Africa and launched their invasion of Sicily. Initially, the MFAA supplied maps highlighting key monuments and religious sites in towns and cities targeted for attacks or bombings. As the Allies advanced into Italy, the MFAA—comprising art historians, architects, archaeologists, and artists—followed closely behind.
The urgency of the MFAA’s mission intensified when reports revealed that during an August 1943 bombing raid on Milan, a British bomb struck the Cloister of the Dead, a courtyard within the Santa Maria delle Grazie Church. The explosion severely damaged nearby structures, including the church’s refectory, home to one of the world’s most renowned frescoes: Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. The blast caused the east wall of the refectory to collapse. Thanks to the swift actions of local officials, who installed metal braces, pine scaffolding, and sandbags on both sides of the north wall, da Vinci’s iconic work was spared from being lost forever.
MFAA members spread across Italy, pinpointing buildings of artistic or architectural importance that had suffered damage. They worked tirelessly to repair or stabilize these structures to prevent further harm. In August 1944, the Nazis obliterated Florence’s historic bridges over the Arno River, including the Renaissance-era Ponta Santa Trinita and the medieval Ponte alla Caraia and Ponte alle Grazie. Upon their arrival days later, the MFAA team secured the Torre degli Amidei, a medieval tower, and cleared debris around the sole surviving bridge, the Ponte Vecchio.
Around the same period, the MFAA turned its attention to Pisa, a town along the Arno River. Cathedral Square, home to four significant buildings, includes the oldest—the Cathedral, constructed in 1064—and the famed Leaning Tower of Pisa. The youngest structure, the Camposanto Monumentale or “monumental cemetery,” holds the tombs of notable Pisans buried in soil said to have been brought from Golgotha, the site of Jesus’ crucifixion. The Camposanto’s sheltered arcades once displayed 2,000 square meters (6,562 ft) of frescoes, considered the most important medieval paintings in Europe.
In July 1944, an Allied incendiary bomb set the Camposanto’s roof ablaze, burning its rafters and melting the lead roofing. The fire destroyed nearly all sculptures and sarcophagi, while the molten lead dripped onto the frescoes. The MFAA mobilized teams of Pisans to remove the lead and collect fragments of the painted artwork. The painstaking restoration of these frescoes remains still ongoing.
The photograph above, taken in the 1890s, captures the fresco The Triumph of Death, attributed to Buonamico Buffalmacco, long before it suffered damage. The image also showcases the exquisite sarcophagus and statues beneath it, which have since been lost.
9. Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth Of Venus
In 1938, Benito Mussolini spent two hours guiding Adolf Hitler through Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, one of the oldest art museums globally. Hitler, a failed artist, was already envisioning a massive art museum in Linz, Austria. Three years later, Mussolini ordered the Uffizi to pack 34 crates of art and ship them to Germany. The removal of artworks accelerated after Mussolini’s fall and the Allies’ advance into Tuscany.
By late July 1944, the Allies reached the southern bank of the Arno. On August 13, 1944, the Nazis seized a collection of paintings from the Uffizi, hidden in Alto Adige, northern Italy, including Luca Signorelli’s The Crucifixion with St. Mary Magdalen. The paintings were transported without crates or proper protection, only straw, in open trucks exposed to the elements and rough roads. Florence officials attempted to intervene but were unsuccessful.
A stroke of luck led to the discovery of another stash of paintings hidden by the Germans in Castello di Montegufoni, a 13th-century castle in Firenze. In July, the Eighth Indian Division commandeered the castle as their headquarters. During their exploration, a Maratha soldier stumbled upon 261 artworks stolen from the Uffizi and Palazzo Pitti, another Florence museum. Among the treasures were Botticelli’s renowned Primavera and his iconic The Birth of Venus. The British and Indian armies handed the paintings over to the MFAA.
The MFAA embarked on their third and final mission phase: recovering artworks looted by the Nazis, many of which were already concealed in Germany. They discovered The Crucifixion with St. Mary Magdalen and other Florentine masterpieces in a Nazi hideout within a San Leonardo, Italy, jail cell. These treasures were returned to Florence amid much celebration in July 1945.
8. Benvenuto Cellini’s Saliera
Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), a Renaissance sculptor and goldsmith, was as notorious for his tumultuous life as he was celebrated for his art. Exiled from Florence at 16 after a brawl and sentenced to death at 23 for another altercation, he fled to Rome. There, his metalwork gained such acclaim that he crafted seals and medals for bishops, cardinals, and popes. These patrons granted him pardons for crimes ranging from embezzlement to murder. After escaping Castel Sant’Angelo in 1537 using a rope made of sheets, he was eventually released to work for Cardinal d’Este of Ferrara.
While still employed by Cardinal d’Este, Cellini presented a wax model of a salt shaker, known as a Saliera, to the Cardinal. Dismissed due to its high cost, Cellini took it to France, where King Francis I commissioned the piece.
Cellini’s Saliera symbolizes the world, featuring Neptune, the sea god, on one side and Tellus or Terra, the Roman earth deity, on the other. Their intertwined legs signify the union of land and sea. Neptune is depicted riding seahorses, while Tellus rides an elephant. A small temple beside Tellus holds pepper (as peppercorns), and a boat beside Neptune stores salt. The ebony base includes ivory rollers, allowing the Saliera to be rolled across a table, symbolically moving the world. When King Francis I first saw it, Cellini claimed he “gasped in amazement and couldn’t look away.”
The Saliera is Cellini’s sole surviving precious metal masterpiece, crafted from rolled and sculpted gold, and remains his most renowned creation. Seized by the Nazis from Vienna’s Kunsthistorische Museum, it was recovered by the MFAA in a vast cache of stolen art near Kitzbuhel, Austria. Today, its value is estimated at $60 million.
7. Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady With An Ermine
Not all stolen artworks were intended for the Third Reich. Many high-ranking Nazis amassed personal collections of looted art. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, upon his arrest at the war’s end, possessed around 1,500 stolen paintings and sculptures, surpassing many museum collections. He famously remarked, “In the past, it was called plundering. Now, it’s more civilized. Nevertheless, I plan to plunder, and I’ll do it thoroughly.”
Lady with an Ermine is considered one of da Vinci’s early masterpieces, highlighting his genius even in his youth. The painting avoids straight lines, guiding the viewer’s gaze smoothly around the composition. Da Vinci employed a unique technique called “catch-lights” to bring brightness and life to the girl’s eyes. He also pioneered “smokiness,” a shading method evident in the subtle tones of her neck and chest. The subject is widely believed to be Cecilia Gallerani, the teenage mistress of da Vinci’s patron, Ludovico, Duke of Milan.
Shortly after the Reich invaded Poland in 1939, da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, Rembrandt van Rijn’s Landscape With the Good Samaritan, and Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man were seized from Krakow’s Czartoryski Museum as gifts for Hitler. A year later, Hans Frank, Hitler’s governor of Poland, requested the paintings be returned to adorn his offices. Frank still possessed them when he fled Poland ahead of the Soviet army in early 1945. By the time of his arrest in Munich that May, the Raphael painting was missing. While the MFAA recovered and returned the da Vinci and Rembrandt works, the Raphael remains still missing today.
6. Michelangelo’s Madonna And Child
In Clooney’s film, Donald Jeffries (portrayed by Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey) races to the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium, to prevent the Nazis from stealing Michelangelo’s renowned Madonna and Child, known as the “Bruges Madonna.” Jeffries engages in a shootout with the Nazi thieves and is killed in the chaos. The real-life inspiration for Jeffries, Ronald Balfour, died from a shell explosion while rescuing an altar piece from another church, unrelated to the Bruges Madonna.
Following D-Day in June 1944, the MFAA arrived on the French coast, trailing the Allied forces as they advanced through France and into Belgium. While the Bruges Madonna was a key focus for the MFAA, they reached the site two days after the Germans had already taken the statue, transporting it eastward to Germany.
This wasn’t the first instance of the Bruges Madonna being stolen from its church. The sculpture, the only Michelangelo work to leave Italy during his lifetime, was also taken in 1794. After French Revolutionaries seized the Austrian Netherlands, the statue was sent to Paris. It wasn’t returned to Bruges until after Napoleon’s defeat.
In May 1945, the MFAA discovered the Bruges Madonna in a salt mine in Altausee, Austria. Hitler had amassed thousands of artworks in the mine, intended for his Linz Fuhrermuseum. While Clooney’s film dramatizes the MFAA retrieving the statue moments before the Russians arrived, the reality is that the MFAA had over a month to remove most of the art, including the Bruges Madonna, before the Soviets took control.
The photo above captures George Stout (the inspiration for George Clooney’s character) alongside two team members, extracting the Madonna from the mine. The statue was eventually returned to Bruges.
5. The Reliquary Bust Of Charlemagne
Reliquaries, containers for relics such as bones or personal items of revered historical or religious figures, were widespread in medieval Europe. Although Charlemagne was not canonized, he ruled as king of the Franks and Lombards and became the first post-classical Emperor of the West, later known as the Holy Roman Empire. After his death in 814, he was interred in Aachen Cathedral, Germany. Around 350 years later, his remains were transferred to a golden shrine within the same cathedral. In the 14th century, a silver and gold bust was created, housing fragments of Charlemagne’s skull.
Aachen endured relentless bombing during World War II, leaving its cathedral severely damaged. When the MFAA arrived in October 1944, they noted that the cathedral’s walls, which had stood for 11 centuries, were nearly obliterated. Thankfully, the cathedral’s treasures had been relocated, and the MFAA discovered them in the Siegen copper mine near Westphalia, Germany. Among these artifacts was Charlemagne’s reliquary bust.
In February 2014, scientific analysis confirmed that the skull fragments within the bust are indeed Charlemagne’s.
4. Johannes Vermeer’s The Astronomer
Numerous artworks were seized not from museums or churches but from private residences. When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, they looted 36,000 paintings from Paris, many from personal collections. Jewish collectors were especially targeted. Edouard Alphonse James de Rothschild, a Jewish art collector, owned Johannes Vermeer’s The Astronomer. While fleeing Paris, he attempted to conceal his collection, but the Germans discovered and stole it. Though Hermann Goering desired the Vermeer, it was a favorite of Hitler’s, and Goering reluctantly sent it to the Fuhrer as a gift.
Rothschild was among the fortunate. Many Jewish art dealers and collectors across Europe had their collections seized before or after being sent to concentration camps. Arthur Feldmann, a Jewish art collector, lost 750 old master drawings to the Gestapo during the German invasion of Brno, now in the Czech Republic. Arthur died in a Nazi prison.
After the war, thousands of artworks remained unclaimed, often because their owners had perished at the hands of the Nazis. The Louvre in Paris holds over 1,000 such pieces. The Rothschild family donated The Astronomer to the Louvre after its recovery from the Altausee salt mine. The back of the painting bears a black swastika stamp, placed there by the Reich.
3. Jan van Eyck’s Adoration Of The Mystic Lamb
Widely regarded as Europe’s most significant artwork and the most invaluable piece recovered by the MFAA, the Ghent Altarpiece is a massive polyptych weighing over a ton, measuring 4.5 meters (14.5 ft) in width and meters (11.5 ft) in height. Commissioned in 1426 as an altarpiece for Ghent Cathedral in Belgium, it was started by Hubert van Eyck and completed by his more renowned younger brother, Jan, after Hubert’s death. This masterpiece marked the first major use of oil painting in history, inspiring artists worldwide to adopt oil as their preferred medium. Art historians often view it as the foundation of artistic realism and the transition between medieval and Renaissance art.
The Ghent Altarpiece holds the dubious honor of being stolen in whole or part six or seven times, making it the most frequently stolen artwork in history (despite Guinness’s inaccuracies). Some of its 12 panels were legally sold to the king of Prussia and displayed in Berlin before World War I. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was compelled to return these panels to Ghent. Hitler, like many Germans, saw this as one of the many injustices of the treaty. Determined to reclaim the altarpiece, Hitler hid it, along with other artworks intended for his Linz Fuhrermuseum, in the Altausee salt mine in Austria. The mine’s stable conditions—4–8 degrees Celsius (40–47 °F) and 65% humidity—made it ideal for preserving art.
In March 1945, Hitler issued the “Nero Decree,” ordering the destruction of all valuables if the Third Reich fell or he died. August Eigruber, the Altausee district leader, brought eight crates of 500-kilogram (1,100 lb) bombs into the mine to obliterate its contents. By then, the mine housed 6,577 paintings, 2,300 drawings or watercolors, 137 sculptures, 78 furniture pieces, 122 tapestries, and 1,700 cases of books.
Concerned for their livelihoods, the salt miners secretly removed the explosives from the mine, and Eigruber discovered the theft too late. The miners then sealed the mine entrance, awaiting the Allies’ arrival. The MFAA reached the site on May 21.
2. Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Night Watch
Rembrandt’s most renowned painting—originally titled Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenhurch—was commissioned by Captain Cocq and 17 members of his civic militia as a group portrait. Their names are inscribed on a shield in the background. While they expected a traditional, static lineup, Rembrandt instead depicted them dynamically on a massive canvas, originally measuring 4 by 5 meters (13 by 16 ft).
Through masterful use of light, color, motion, and 16 additional figures, Rembrandt captured the chaotic moments as the militia prepared for battle. By the 18th century, the painting had darkened due to accumulated dirt and varnish, leading critics and the public to dub it Night Watch, as it appeared to depict a nighttime scene.
At the war’s outset, Rembrandt’s masterpiece was taken from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and relocated multiple times across Holland for two years. The Nazis eventually located it and, in 1942, transported it to the centuries-old St. Pietersberg repository, nestled in a mountainside near Maastricht, conveniently close to the German border.
In October 1944, acting on a tip, the MFAA discovered the repository and found The Night Watch rolled up like a carpet on a spindle. The painting had begun to yellow in the dark repository, its striking contrasts of light and color fading. The MFAA ensured the masterpiece was unrolled and re-mounted on its stretcher before returning it to the Rijksmuseum.
1. Ludvig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (Original Manuscript)
World War II inflicted severe damage on German art. Allied bombings devastated the Reich, destroying an estimated 45% of pre-war monuments and statues, with 60% of those hit completely obliterated. During the bombing of Dresden, which involved 3,900 bombs, the Dresden Gallery was struck. While much of its art had been hidden, approximately 206 paintings were lost. The remaining pieces were looted by the Soviet army months later, and around 450 paintings from the gallery remain missing to this day.
After the war, the MFAA combed the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden, where a train car filled with Hermann Goering’s stolen art had been looted by locals. A woodcutter had hidden Gothic statues and a 13th-century reliquary in his home. A 15th-century Aubusson tapestry had been cut into pieces and distributed among local women. The MFAA discovered one home where the tapestry fragments were repurposed as curtains and a bed sheet for a child.
The Rhineland in western Germany also suffered heavy bombing. In Bonn, Ludvig van Beethoven’s birthplace was damaged, and the MFAA was disheartened to find most of its priceless artifacts missing, including the original manuscript of Beethoven’s sixth symphony. Known as the Pastoral Symphony, Symphony No. 6 is among Beethoven’s most cherished compositions.
The MFAA’s spirits lifted when they entered the Siegen copper mine, the first major cache of looted items discovered within Germany. Inside, they uncovered 600 paintings and 100 sculptures by masters such as Gauguin, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Van Dyke, Renoir, and Rubens, most of which had been taken from Rhineland churches and museums. Among the treasures were the Reliquary Bust of Charlemagne and Beethoven’s sixth symphony.
+Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa
The MFAA has often been credited with saving the world’s most famous painting: the Mona Lisa. Some sources suggest they aided the French resistance in keeping it from Nazi hands. In 2007, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a medal to the Monuments Men Foundation, claiming they built the protective barrier that saved da Vinci’s Last Supper and packed the Louvre’s treasures—including the Mona Lisa—into crates, moving them across France. However, these claims are inaccurate, as the MFAA had minimal involvement in safeguarding the Mona Lisa.
Just before the war began in 1939, the Louvre’s artworks were crated and transported to various villas and castles across France. Iconic statues like the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo were carefully loaded onto trucks alongside nearly 3,700 paintings. Thirty-eight convoys carried these treasures out of Paris and into the countryside.
Records indicate that the museum’s crown jewel—da Vinci’s Mona Lisa—was placed on a stretcher and moved out of Paris in a specially equipped, climate-controlled ambulance with heavy-duty shock absorbers. It was first taken to Chambord Castle in the Loire Valley. The painting was relocated twice in 1940, first to Chauvigny in June and then to Montauban in September. Its final move was to Montal in 1942. Its handlers communicated its location through coded messages before it vanished from public knowledge.
The belief that the MFAA rescued the Mona Lisa originates from records stating they found it in the Altausee salt mine. However, these records also note that the painting was “unclaimed” and sent to the Louvre in 1950. The Louvre, however, confirmed that the genuine masterpiece had been returned to the museum on June 16, 1945—five years earlier.
Further investigation reveals that the MFAA likely discovered a 16th-century copy of da Vinci’s painting. This replica remains in the Louvre’s collection. The painting transported across France during the war was this copy, seized by the Germans in 1942 and sent to Altausee. Meanwhile, the original Mona Lisa stayed hidden in an undisclosed location in Paris.
The assertion that the MFAA assisted the French resistance in concealing da Vinci’s iconic work also appears questionable. Robert Edsel, a surviving member of the MFAA, addressed the Mona Lisa in his January 2014 blog. He neither confirmed its discovery in Altausee nor credited the MFAA with aiding the French. Instead, he stated that the French themselves kept the masterpiece hidden until Paris was liberated in August 1944.
