Faulty reasoning signals

• Post Hoc (False Cause) - 12.5%
• Negativity Bias - 12.1%
• Representativeness Heuristic - 9.3%

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Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

A golden salt cellar , the only surviving gold sculpture of Renaissance master Benvenuto Cellini, was stolen from Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum in 2003.

Besides being worth up to $100 million, the salt cellar’s rich imagery represents the elements from which the cosmos was thought to be made.

The thief finally turned himself in after three years, and the salt cellar was returned to its rightful place in the museum—with much tighter security.

At 4:00 a.m. on May 11, 2003, Vienna was still asleep when there was a sudden shattering of glass. An alarm pierced the darkness in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which was undergoing renovations that left it vulnerable to thieves . The security guard on duty thought nothing of the alarm, dismissing it as a glitch without ever realizing that an intruder had managed to climb the scaffolding and creep through the shadows of the gallery before escaping with invaluable Renaissance gold.

Robert Mang was (ironically) an alarm systems specialist and avid figurine collector. But his passion for collecting wandered too far when the only surviving solid-gold sculpture from the Renaissance—an intricately detailed salt cellar, or saliera , by Benvenuto Cellini—caught his eye. Mang figured he could sell the sculpture for its gold, but after he’d pulled off the heist, he was faced with a glaring problem. What he had in his hands was beyond rare , and with only one in existence, it would easily be recognized. Never mind that because of its unique qualities and provenance it was worth anywhere from $57 million to $100 million.

Mang would never see a payout. The risk of attempting to sell this masterpiece was too high, so it languished in a suitcase under his bed until he concealed it in a lead box and buried it in the woods.

Headlines about the theft spread through the Austrian press. Cellini had been trained as a goldsmith and had supposedly made other works in gold , but the saliera is the only one that has been authenticated (all others had either been lost or remained unidentified). Despite being rumored to have murdered his artistic rivals, he’s most remembered for bronze sculptures such as Nymph of Fontainebleau and Perseus With the Head of Medusa .

The saliera was originally commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, but when d’Este saw the silver -plate prototypes, he backed out before the price became prohibitive. Cellini later used those prototypes to complete the work for King Francis I of France, who became his patron. Nymph of Fontainebleau and numerous other intricately sculpted works would soon decorate the French monarch’s palace.

King Francis I was an aficionado of nudes and sexual imagery, and the saliera was decorated to fit his proclivities. With a naked Neptune (the sea god) wielding his trident on one side, and Tellus (the Earth mother) reclining on another, their intertwined legs and feet—along with the meeting of waves and land beneath them—serve as a kind of visual innuendo that would have been recognizable at the time. Through his depictions of deities symbolic of earth and water, Cellini spoke to two of the four elements from which matter was believed to have been created (the others being air and fire).

Complimenting the main figures were numerous images, including horses covered in fish scales emerging from waves, since the ancient Romans believed horses had emerged from the ocean. The saliera also bears a reference to salt's supposed origin: the merging of land and sea . Figures that are possibly the Muses dance around its base near the blowing faces of the four winds. A salamander (emblematic of Francis I) rises alongside a miniature Roman temple.

Even the materials used in the construction of the masterpiece were filled with meaning. Gold and glass , were thought to derive from water and earth, as were the seasonings held in the saliera’s bowls—salt beside Neptune, pepper next to Tellus. The entire work is an allegory that also pays homage to the king’s power over all life.

Following the death of Francis I, the saliera passed to Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol before finally landing at Kunsthistorisches Museum. Its theft was an embarrassment to the museum , and anxiety spread among police and museum officials alike regarding whether the priceless artwork was still intact or had been melted down for its gold. It seemed to have vanished into nothingness until Mang texted police demanding a ransom. But security cameras at a nearby phone shop had caught him buying the cell phone he’d used to send the messages. The police published the photo, and Mang finally turned himself in and led them to where the saliera was buried.

“Our biggest fear was that it would get melted down,” Austrian Police inspector Ernst Geiger told The Guardian in 2006. In his texts to police, Mang indicated he was “angry that the police were involved and said he was considering turning it into scrap .’”

Fortunately, Cellini’s saliera had gone virtually undamaged since its theft, wrapped in plastic and leather inside the waterproof lead box where it had been resting beneath a thick cover of snow. Mang had evaded capture for three years, but in the end he was sentenced to four years in prison. The sculpture now lives in a secure display case where its splendor will, hopefully, continue to dazzle visitors for centuries to come.

Elizabeth Rayne is a creature who writes. Her work has appeared in Popular Mechanics, Ars Technica, SYFY WIRE, Space.com, Live Science, Den of Geek, Forbidden Futures and Collective Tales. She lurks right outside New York City with her parrot, Lestat. When not writing, she can be found drawing, playing the piano or shapeshifting.

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