51 pages • 1-hour read
An Inside Job
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide features discussions of graphic violence and death.
The Lost Leonardo
The lost Leonardo is a painting within a painting that symbolizes the need to look beneath the surface to find the truth. It relates to the theme of The Deceptive Nature of Appearances. Superficially, there is nothing special about a Madonna-and-child painting by an anonymous Renaissance artist. It isn’t until Penny Radcliff begins removing layers of surface paint that she discovers the masterpiece beneath. Even after she exposes a brush technique and a model’s face that are both associated with Leonardo da Vinci, nobody believes her. This symbolizes the gap between appearance and reality when it comes to expertise. If Penny were a celebrated art critic or historian, others might be more inclined to believe her.
The face in the painting weaves together the threads of the plot. When Penny’s is discovered, her face has been damaged beyond recognition. Ironically, it is the face in the painting that convinces her it is a lost Leonardo. Gabriel becomes involved in the case when he is tasked with reconstructing Penny’s face for identification purposes. When he sees her in the morgue, she appears to be “A woman without a name. A woman without a face” (25). Because Gabriel never settles for superficial appearances any more than Penny did, he soon gets to the deeper truth of the faceless, nameless woman in the canal, and this will lead him to the truth of the lost Leonardo.
News Media
The news media appear at multiple points in the novel as a motif related to scandal and gossip. This speaks to the theme of Preserving Reputation at All Costs. ARTnews is the first prominent news organization featured in the plot when Penny contacts a reporter there, hinting at a cover-up at the Vatican. It is this contact with the press that leads to her death and sets off the events that follow.
The pope is followed by reporters at every step. They are particularly insistent during his trip to Lampedusa. Social media is their method of choice, as they can easily spread rumors and speculation, much of it generated by the Vaticanisti. On the pope’s trip, they are “blasting away on their feeds from the back of the airplane” (334). Luigi and the Curia routinely provide disinformation to them, knowing that it will spread rapidly and using the social media’s desire for scandal to their advantage.
Luigi even spins a story related to his assassination attempt. He tells Gabriel, “‘The world must never know what really happened today.’ ‘An act of madness by a lone gunman?’ ‘Why not?’” (366). This shows how the media’s hunger for sensational stories can get in the way of its primary job, which is to make truthful information public. The more they post stories without vetting them, the easier they are to manipulate.
Illegal Tactics
At many critical junctures, Gabriel’s team uses illegal means to achieve their ends. This motif illustrates the concept that the end justifies the means and relates to the theme of The Limits of the Law. From the very start of the investigation, Gabriel begins bending the rules. While he is only asked to sketch Penny’s face for police identification purposes, he uses that sketch to begin his own interrogation of witnesses who might have seen her. He quickly inserts himself into Rossetti’s investigation of the Vatican guard who took the painting from storage, and these are the least of his infractions.
Shortly afterward, Gabriel has Julian pose as a prospective buyer for the painting and uses malware to track Tedeschi, which leads him to the Camorra bank in Lugano. His crimes escalate when he enlists Ingrid to hack into the bank’s systems and extract its financial records. He then extorts Martin’s unwilling cooperation to analyze the bank’s transactions.
With this information in hand, Gabriel surveils the principal players in the painting sale and sets up a sting operation to steal the real painting and substitute a forgery in its place. Although Rossetti is a participant in this activity, he leaves the actual theft to Gabriel and his team. As a final step, Gabriel then has Ingrid steal back the forgery from its buyer. The Art Squad is aware of most of Gabriel’s extralegal activities but turns a blind eye. Ferrari is pragmatic when he hears that Gabriel intends to steal back the forgery without killing anyone, showing that the lawful and the lawless can work hand in hand to serve justice.
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