Ceiling of Sistine chapel

The Vatican is confirming that is has refused to pay a ransom demanded for two letters written by Michelangelo that were stolen from the archives 18 years ago.

According to The New York Times, an identified man recently approached Cardinal Angelo Comastri, Prefect of the Fabric of St. Peter which oversees the basilica, to offer him two documents that were written by Michelangelo. The documents he was referring to were reported to have been stolen from the Vatican archives in 1997. The man was offering to return them for 100,000 euros, the equivalent of about $109,000.

The Cardinal refused and instead notified the Swiss Guards. Italian police confirmed that the Vatican filed an official theft report on Saturday.

The two documents in question were reported missing in 1997 by Sister Teresa Todaro who was serving as archivist for the Fabric of St. Peter at the time. It is not known if the documents were actually stolen at that time, or earlier, and had just been discovered missing.

Il Messaggero, the Italian newspaper that broke the story this past Sunday, believes that because the archives are located within the confines of the Vatican, whoever stole the documents in the first place had to be an insider. “Clearly, it was someone who had inside knowledge of the place,” the paper speculated.

Thus far, no one at the Vatican is talking except to confirm the basic facts of the case. When asked if the Pope knew about it, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi simply said, “The pope does read the papers, so he might have read the news in the paper, but I don’t think we need to get him involved in these things.”

The Vatican is in possession of one of the world’s largest collections of art and historical documents in the world.

“The archival documents span 12 centuries and are stored in shelves that, if placed in a single line, would stretch for more than 50 miles,” the NYT reports.

The missing Michelangelo documents were stored inside a smaller archive in St. Peter’s Basilica along with other documents concerning the construction of the basilica which took place from 1506 until 1626. Michelangelo is responsible for painting the frescoes inside the Sistine chapel and also served as chief architect of the construction of the basilica, as well as playing a “significant role” in erecting the structure’s famous dome, the NYT reports.

One of the stolen items is believed to have been a letter written by Michelangelo and another is a document that contains his signature. Both are thought to concern the construction of the basilica.

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