This is how Spain allowed its artistic treasures to be looted.

It left the port of Bilbao aboard the freighter Monte Navajo in 839 crates. It had been dismantled into 3,396 pieces, that is, ashlars, voussoirs, and stone blocks. It arrived at Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan, where it was reconstructed as part of a medieval monastery.

We are talking about the apse of the Church of San Martín de Fuentidueña, a Romanesque gem built around 1175, which was sold by Spain to John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1957. There were financial compensations, but above all it was an element of soft diplomacy by the dictator Franco's government to isolate itself from the world.

The Americans rebuilt it along with other parts of other monuments and created The Cloisters, the fake complex that today the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the most important in the world, uses to explain medieval art.

The catalogue currently includes 277 works of art, of which 91 are in the United States and 38 in France.

Now, a file on San Martín de Fuentidueña is part of the virtual catalog Nostra et Mundi, created by the Castile and León Foundation, which collects works of art that were looted and never returned.

It contains 277, and thirty more are in the process of being added. Castile and León "is the region that has suffered the most from artistic plunder," according to the project's academic coordinator, María José Martínez, a professor at the University of Valladolid and an expert on the subject. "It would be extremely interesting to extend it to the rest of the country."

The document, of sensational clarity and technical excellence, is a journey through the history of art plunder, the dealers, collectors, museologists, and magnates who moved the heritage around the world. The website was created with the support of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, in Madrid, and maintained by a dozen professors and lecturers from the universities of Valladolid and Burgos.

In addition to two medieval buildings (both moved to the United States), there are all kinds of works: altarpieces, murals, choir grilles, carvings, stalls, ivory plaques... 91 of the 277 listed so far are in the US, 38 in France, and 27 in Great Britain, among the main destinations.

In the midst of the legal and cultural battle between Aragon and Catalonia over the Sixena paintings—rescued by the MNAC to prevent their destruction—the Castilian-Leonese catalogue "is not presented in terms of claims," explains Martínez.

On the contrary, the project aims for these works, which today enrich dozens of museums around the world, to "act as cultural ambassadors, so that visitors to this or that museum know where they come from. We want this dispersion to be known, but with a positive side."

"Art and history," he continues, "should not be instruments of conflict, but rather a path to rapprochement. This requires generosity and broad vision. In the past, of course, many things were done wrong, and we are the heirs of all of this; we must undoubtedly acknowledge it and confront it."

Castile and León wants to bring out the positive side of the plunder, and use the artifacts as a lure for cultural tourism. "People should come and see where these wonders came from," says Martínez.

The catalog maps the pieces' place of origin and current location, along with the intermediate stages they underwent, in galleries, museums, churches, and private homes. It provides insight into the atrocities committed against some of the pieces.

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A marvelous 13th-century fabric bearing the text "Alhamdulillah" from the tomb of Prince Don Felipe in Villalcázar de Sirga, Palencia, was cut into at least 11 pieces. They are now in the Museum of Art and History in Brussels, the Valencia Institute of Don Juan in Madrid, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the MET, the Cooper Hewitt and Hispanic Society in New York, the museums of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lyon, the Center for Documentation and Textile Museum in Terrassa, and the Episcopal Museum of Vic.

“What was done to textiles in the 19th century was insane,” Martínez continues. “The merchants made more profit this way. They also cut books, capital letters for example, to make more money. There were extremely serious injuries.”

The Nostra et Mundi virtual catalog has required documenting the pieces one by one, compiling, comparing, and summarizing all available information. A dozen professors, lecturers, and experts in art and cultural plunder have participated. The investigation has led to the discovery of the whereabouts of some pieces looted from this region. "Above all, we have discovered the history of many of them," notes the academic coordinator, María José Martínez. By making the website public, the research has been "collaborative." In some towns, residents have provided data from oral history, which has been incorporated into the file for a piece.