The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) opened a single-work exhibition on September 13 which showcases the rare Renaissance painting, the Senigallia Madonna (1470s), and recounts the fascinating story of its theft and recovery in the 1970s. On loan from Italy, the work was created by Italian master Piero della Francesca (1411/13–1492) and will be on view in the United States for the first time.

Stolen in 1975, the tempera and oil on panel painting was recovered the following year by the Carabinieri Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (known as the Carabinieri Art Squad)—a branch of the Italian military police charged with combating theft, looting and illicit trade in works of art.

“This profoundly moving painting, by one of the greatest of all Italian artists, will give visitors to the MFA an experience of intense spirituality,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director at the MFA.

Admired today for creating some of 15th-century Italy’s most treasured frescoes and altarpieces, Piero was a brilliant mathematician as well as a painter. Known as an early master of geometry, his style is marked by the geometric elegance of his settings, the calm and nobility of his monumental figures and a masterly handling of light.

The Senigallia Madonna, nearly 2 feet by 2 feet in size, shows the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child with two attending angels. Given its format and subject, this picture would have been intended for private devotion. Its name comes from the port city near Urbino in Italy, where it was first noted in a church in the 19th century. The painting is normally on display in the Italian museum, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, located in the Ducal Palace (Palazzo Ducale) in Urbino.

With only a handful of works by Piero in American museums, the Senigallia Madonna exhibition is a rare opportunity to see what is believed to be the Tuscan artist’s last painting.

The theft of the Senigallia Madonna occurred on February 5, 1975 along with another Piero, The Flagellation of Christ, and Raphael’s portrait of an unidentified noblewoman known as The Mute Woman. Urbino’s Ducal Palace, home to the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche since 1912, was considered one of Italy’s most-secure museums at the time. However, thieves took advantage of scaffolding alongside the Palace to break into the gallery—scaling 12- to 15-foot walls, breaking windows and using false keys to gain entry. Like most museums, the Palace lacked an electronic alarm system, and with guards making rounds only every two hours, the thieves were able make their escape before the works were found missing at 2:30 a.m., with only the frames left behind.

After more than a year of investigation—and public pleas to the thieves to protect the works —the Art Squad received information from a Roman antiques dealer that led them to Switzerland. Posing as wealthy buyers, they staged a mock negotiation with the suspects. The meeting never took place, but the works were discovered in a hotel in Locarno on March 23, 1976. After recovering the paintings, four people were arrested in Italy, Germany and Switzerland and the paintings were returned to Urbino on March 29, 1976.

The recovery of the Senigallia Madonna was a milestone for the Art Squad, formed in 1969 to protect Italy’s artistic heritage. Part of the Ministry of Culture, the unit was the first in the world dedicated exclusively to fighting art theft and forgery. Now with 280 officers, the Art Squad works in Italy and abroad with groups including INTERPOL and UNESCO to protect, document and find stolen works. The unit’s responsibilities range from maintaining the world’s most complete database on illicit art trafficking to thwarting illegal excavation of sensitive archaeological sites. Since its inception, the unit has rescued approximately one million archaeological objects from the black market, recovered more than 500,000 works of art and seized close to 300,000 forgeries.

Part of the MFA’s Visiting Masterpieces series, Piero della Francesca’s Senigallia Madonna: An Italian Treasure, Stolen and Recovered will be on view through January 6, 2014 in the Museum’s Lee Gallery, along with a companion video that chronicles the efforts of the Carabinieri. The exhibition is part of “2013—Year of Italian Culture,” a series of events that celebrates the best of Italian arts and culture in more than 50 cities and 80 participating institutions across the US.