Monuments officer Captain Deane Keller visited the Florentine museum repository at Montegufoni during the winter of 1944–45. Botticelli’s world-famous masterpiece, Primavera, was just one of the 246 paintings that had been stored at Montegufoni for safekeeping by Italian officials. More disturbing was the disappearance of some 700 paintings and sculpture from the Uffizi, Pitti, and Bargelo museums, emptied by retreating German forces. From that moment, the Monuments Men began their work as art detectives, tracking every clue to determine the locations of the missing masterpieces.

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