Works of art are not like diamonds. However valuable a diamond may be, you can always get another like it. But the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican are unique. Their creators are dead, and no money could ever replace them.

—GENERAL SIR H. MAITLAND WILSON,
SUPREME COMMANDER, ALLIED FORCES
MEDITERRANEAN THEATER

Edsel, Robert M.. Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasures from the Nazis (pp. 7-8). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.