The Return of the Masterpiece

The Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was an ocean of black tie, haute couture, and blinding camera flashes. Beneath the soaring limestone arches, eight hundred international dignitaries, museum directors, foreign ambassadors, and scholars gathered for the most anticipated cultural unveiling of the century: the formal return of Caravaggio's long-lost masterpiece, *The Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence*. On the elevated marble stage before the grand staircase…