The painting , which hung above the altar , was large , measuring almost six square metres ( actual size 268 cm x 197 cm ) . Probably because of its size , it was removed from its frame by two thieves before being taken out of the church . After it was stolen , the Oratory was pillaged of other art , along with choir stalls of carved and gilded wood and benches inlaid with precious woods and mother of pearl . The local Sicilian Mafia are generally considered to be the prime culprits in the theft although nobody actually knows who committed the crime . The whereabouts of the work remain unknown to this day . Rumours of its destruction during the theft , or subsequently in the 1980 Irpinia earthquake , have circulated from time to time as has the notion that the masterpiece is now hidden abroad . In 1996 , Francesco Marino Mannoia , an informant and former member of the Sicilian Mafia , claimed he had stolen the painting as a young man on the orders of a high-ranking mobster , but other sources say it was stolen by amateurs and then sold on to various Mafiosi ; at one point it is said to have ended up in the hands of Rosario Riccobono , who was killed in 1982 , after which it passed on to Gerlando Alberti . In 2009 , Gaspare Spatuzza , a former Mafia figure turned police informer , claimed that he was told in 1999 that the painting was stolen for a private collector but had been destroyed by rats and pigs while hidden in a farm outbuilding and the remains burned
1980 Irpinia earthquake
1980 Irpinia earthquake
Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence