The Laocoön group is a defining piece of the Vatican Museums that was found nearly intact underground in a vineyard in 1506. Its right arm was discovered just meters from that spot, 400 years later. The discovery is credited to the Jewish art dealer Ludwig Pollak, who was targeted by the Nazis but refused protection from the Vatican. He was deported and killed at Auschwitz. Attempts to save him by his friend and then director of the pontifical galleries, Bartolomeo Nogara, were in vain.