VERONA, Italy — Seventeen masterpieces valued at $17.7 million were returned to Italy from Ukraine on Wednesday after being stolen by masked, armed robbers from an art museum in Italy last year.

Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, who traveled to Kiev to retrieve the paintings — which included works by Rubens — said the possibility of ever recovering them once seemed remote. Still, the paintings returned with little more than scratches after their long ordeal, an art expert said.

“It was an ugly story that became a beautiful story,” Franceschini said.