Nine idlers

As the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence has always been known as the capital of art. Walking in the streets and alleys of Florence, an inadvertent house may be the former residence of a medieval art master, or a house with a dilapidated appearance may be hung inside. With a world-famous painting, anyone who walks into this kind of room can appreciate the masterpieces of art masters hundreds of years ago at close range.For the Florentines, it is their pride to display these precious paintings that should be carefully preserved in museums as ordinary objects, even if this pride will bring some troubles.

The large urban area west of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence is the old city area, which was also a poor area in the past. Perhaps it is precisely because the poor people live here that the buildings in this urban area have not suffered much in the previous catastrophes that Florence encountered. The blow has been preserved almost intact, and today it has become the entire ancient architectural city of Florence.

Because this urban area is next to the Arno River, the scenery along the river is very good. After World War II, many wealthy people from Europe bought the houses and land in this urban area, and repaired and remodeled the ancient buildings here. This slum area has become a misnomer.

The vast majority of people transform the buildings here into resort hotels and private villas, but there are also some people who, because of the ancient atmosphere around them, make the people in them seem to be trapped in the past, so they invariably transform the buildings here into The Museum of Classical Art.The Bronte Museum of Art is one of them, and it is also one of the most famous classical art museums in this city. It not only collects paintings or statues of classical masters such as Michelangelo and Da Vinci, but also collects many medieval art museums. The manuscripts of art masters, and the master sculptures with strong religious color.Even a world-renowned large museum like the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore sometimes needs to borrow some exhibits from here to make up for the lack of its own exhibits.

As the name of this museum indicates, the founder of the museum is Bronte. According to the information he provided, he was a descendant of nobles who were exiled overseas during the French Revolution. He was born in Florence. Mother went to settle in the United States.During World War II, he made a considerable amount of war fortune. Because of his love of art and his childhood memories of Florence, he decided to give up everything in the United States, return to the birthplace of Florence, and create a A true private museum.

At the beginning, the Florentines did not pay too much attention to this museum. After all, there are countless private museums in Florence in private capacity or as a private company, and this Bronte is just one of them.The Florentines didn't think such a private museum would be so good. After all, if there was no strong financial support behind the museum, there might not be any outstanding exhibits in the museum.Although Bronte is a rich man, it is obviously difficult to support a private museum with his current financial resources.

However, what is unexpected is that this Mr. Bronte was able to attract several large donations from several large European and American groups, which instantly made up for the lack of funds for the museum. In a private auction, more than a dozen calligraphy, paintings and manuscripts were purchased, which are considered precious even in various museums in Florence, and finally made this museum the largest private museum in Florence.

The Bronte Museum is a residential museum that is common in private museums. The buildings on the side near the street are the main body of the museum, while the houses near the Arno River are the private residences and cultural relics of Mr. Bronte. Restoration.

Every evening, Mr. Bronte would stand on the balcony of his residence and watch the sunset over the Arno River. For this reason, he specially painted a series of oil paintings of the sunset over the Arno River in December.Although in the eyes of true oil painting connoisseurs, his paintings can only be regarded as mediocre, but because of the convenience of the curator of the private museum, he was able to hang these mediocre oil paintings next to the paintings of art masters, so that visitors who come here While looking at the master's paintings, you can also appreciate his own works.

Mr. Bronte's behavior made the Florentine artists very angry, thinking that his poor paintings were placed next to the master paintings, which was an insult to those Renaissance masters.To this end, they have formed several petitions, asking Mr. Bronte to remove his paintings, even at the expense of official connections in Florence.However, it turned out to be of no avail, and Mr. Bronte dialed back any requests on the grounds of the private museum, even directly telling the Florence city government that if the city government continued to exert pressure, he would transfer the private museum to other cities in Italy.

It was precisely because of Mr. Bronte's tough attitude that this matter was finally settled.However, the only one who gave up was the city government of Florence, and many artists in Florence still did not give up the idea of ​​removing Bronte's ugly paintings from the master paintings.Ever since, they came up with a bad idea to find thieves to steal those ugly paintings.

The normal status of the Frenchman Campbell is very ordinary. He is a wandering artist and a well-known painter. He often wanders between various art museums around the world, but in fact he is a well-known art thief in the world. , because he likes to wear a black hat when committing crimes, so he also has the nickname of a black hat in various intelligence organizations.

It's just that, in addition to being a painter, art thief, etc., Campbell also has an unusual identity, he is a supernatural person.His ability is simply invisibility. This invisibility ability is not only for himself, he can also make everything he touches invisible through touch.With this ability, he can easily steal every piece of art he likes from those tightly guarded museums.

Originally, Campbell came to Italy this time because of the incident in Milan.Although his ability does not have too much positive power, but if he uses it well, he can fish in troubled waters, and he can gain something with any number of hands.

However, what happened next frightened Campbell. A warning letter from Vera, the newly promoted elder of the Oliver family, was delivered to him without anyone knowing it. The extremely obvious threatening words in the warning letter made him feel worried. .Afterwards, he who was going to observe the situation was frightened by Vera and others' thunderous methods. A large number of supernatural beings who seemed to him to be extremely powerful were assassinated one after another, and one of them even died not far from him. At the same time, a chill rushed from his spine to his heart, which instantly cooled down the greed in his heart.

Like other supernatural beings, before Vera issued her second warning, Campbell and the other terrified supernatural beings all fled away from Milan.The difference from other supernatural beings is that other supernatural beings still have a little hope for fishing in troubled waters, but Campbell has no hope at all. After leaving Milan, he took the train to Florence immediately.

Campbell, who originally planned to take this opportunity to relax, unexpectedly ran into a former client, and this client had a job at hand, which was to steal and destroy Bronte's paintings.

Although the reward for this job is not much, after all, the artist who organized this event has no money, but Campbell is also an artist himself, and he is extremely disdainful and disgusted with Bronte's behavior, even if the reward for this transaction is not what he wants , but he also quickly made a decision to take over the job.

After accepting this job, Campbell did not rush to survey the scene like other art thieves, designate the theft plan and leave plan, etc. He turned to play among various attractions in Florence like an ordinary tourist, There was even an exotic encounter.

It wasn't until the day before the task completion date agreed with the employer that Campbell leisurely wandered into his target location with a tour group, and quietly watched some other exhibits in the museum with others. Finally, I came to the room where the works of Renaissance masters and the twelve eye-catching paintings hung.

Campbell had heard of the twelve ugly sunset paintings, but this was actually the first time he had seen them.With his appreciation, it is not difficult to see that these sunset oil paintings are very ordinary. It may be good to put them in an ordinary gallery, but they are extremely obtrusive when placed next to the master's works, like a dead bird floating on white milk. Like flies.

It's just that, after rejecting the twelve paintings with an artistic eye at first glance, Campbell suddenly felt an inexplicable feeling of sadness, pain, regret and other emotions, which made him produce this kind of The cause of the mood turned out to be these twelve ugly, ordinary-looking paintings.

As an art thief, Campbell has a world-class appreciation ability. He knows that this sudden feeling comes from his inner resonance with these twelve paintings, and none of the paintings that could resonate with him in the past One exception is all masterpieces.

"Is there something else hidden in this painting?" Campbell, who was about to leave with others, returned to the twelve paintings, looked at the ugly oil paintings in front of him with doubts, and muttered to himself .

It's not that Campbell hasn't encountered something like a picture-in-picture in the past.Because of World War II, some people inherited some master works from their ancestors, but they were worried that these works would be taken away for various reasons, so they drew another painting on these works, and preserved the paintings through this method of deception. .Until the situation is stable, hang up the surface layer of oil paint and take out these master works again.

It’s just that things often backfire, many people died in the war, and these disguised masterpieces were also sold cheaply because of the ignorance of their children and descendants, and finally fell into the hands of knowledgeable people like Campbell. (~^~)