On Friday week Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece " Monne Lisa,"
which was stolen from the Louvre two years ago, was recovered in Florence. The thief is an Italian named Perugia. Perugia wrote to Geri, a picture-dealer of Florence, stating that lie had the picture and asking whether Geri would buy it.. Geri invited the man to bring the picture to Florence. Meanwhile be informed the authorities, and Signor Poggi went with him to a rendezvous appointed by Perugia. The picture was produced from the false bottom of a wooden trunk. Perugia was then arrested. He expressed much indignation at this treatment, saying that his heart bad burned to restore to his country what had been stolen by Napoleon. As a matter of fact, the picture was never taken by Napoleon, but had been bought by the French King, Francis I., three hundred years before. Perugia was employed on the cleaning and restoring staff of the Louvre, and stated that he simply took the picture out of its frame and carried it under his blouse. The picture has been on view in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence—where Signor Poggi had to beg the spectators, who poured in by thousands, to keep calm—and will soon be smiling again inscrutably from the walls of the Louvre with an enormous increment of romance.
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