Vincenzo Peruggia in the town of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, France. His death was not widely reported by the media; obituaries appeared mistakenly only when another Vincenzo Peruggia died in Haute-Savoie in 1947. There are currently two predominant theories regarding the theft of the "Mona Lisa". Peruggia said he did it for a patriotic reason: he wanted to bring the painting back for display in Italy "after it was stolen by Napoleon". Although perhaps sincere in his motive, Vincenzo may not have known that Leonardo da Vinci took this painting as a gift for Francis I when he moved to France to become a painter
Vincenzo Peruggia approx. , so it would not fit under a smock worn by someone his size. Instead, he said he took off his smock and wrapped it around the painting, tucked it under his arm, and left the Louvre through the same door he had entered. Peruggia hid the painting in his apartment in Paris. Supposedly, when police arrived to search his apartment and question him, they accepted his alibi that he had been working at a different location on the day of the theft. After keeping the painting hidden in a trunk in his apartment for two years, Peruggia returned