Forty years ago, in May 1969, the special squad of the Carabinieri assigned to the protection of the cultural heritage was set up, which then in 1975 became functionally answerable to the newly-established Ministry for the Cultural Heritage.

The offices of this special squad were installed just a few steps from the Collegio Romano, in the evocative setting of Piazza Sant'Ignazio, underscoring even through the physical vicinity the relationship of essential and total collaboration between the two institutions, sharing the objective of protecting the cultural heritage of the nation, as endorsed by the Constitution.

Over the span of these forty years there have been reforms and changes that have involved both the Public Sector and society as a whole, fine-tuning the weapons and tools of those engaged in protecting the cultural heritage, and of those who in various ways attempt to destroy or violate it.

This show, housed in the Florentine venue and in the two sister sites in Rome and Naples, celebrates the birthday of the special squad, the Comando Tutela Patrimonio Artistico, while also offering the perfect occasion for appraising how much has been achieved and how, and how much still remains to be done.

The exhibition, set up in the Sala Bianca of the Pitti Palace, is devoted in particular to sacred art, and hence to paintings and objects stolen from churches and convents, and sometimes museums, but in all cases works on sacred subjects or objects of liturgical use. Consequently this tends to bring to light how, for many different reasons, sites of worship tend to be exposed to the risk of theft and damage and how over time the squad of the Carabinieri specialised in this sector has set its resources and competence at the service of the Church and its enormous artistic heritage.

What the selected works have in common, first and foremost, is the very high "quality", illustrating how even unrivalled masterpieces, which one would think are immune to all risk, have over time been involved in more or less sensational robberies.

As well as being arranged in chronological order, the works are also divided up into panels, canvases, sculptures and works of applied art, illustrating how the thefts have indiscriminately affected different genres. Another criterion of selection could be defined as "geographical", since because the work of the special squad of the Carabinieri covers the entire country, the works on display too ought to represent all the different Regions of Italy.

Special emphasis is also placed on the relationship that links the public, understood as the community of the faithful, to the works of the churches and the sites of worship, the relationship between museums and territory, and the progress which - also thanks to the activity of the special squad of the Carabinieri - has been made in making safe the individual works and the sites that house them.

The exhibition also represents the opportunity for presenting two important restoration works: on the one hand the polyptych by Sano di Pietro from the chapel of the Convent of San Bernardino in Sinalunga, which in chronological order is among the most recent retrievals of the special squad of the Carabinieri, and on the other the triptych by Mariotto di Nardo from the church of Sant'Angelo in Legnaia, which will subsequently be returned to its site of origin.

Since this is an "institutional" exhibition, which is also aimed at disseminating correct attitudes regarding law abidance and illustrating how the protection of the cultural heritage is implemented in tangible terms, there will also be a series of educational elements with IT supports aimed at the public as a whole, but in particular at visitors of school age. In substance, the idea is that the show can also provide the pretext for fostering an easier approach to the main issues of protection that the greater public is not aware of in all their facets.