quote:
(Rome) "Cerca, trova" - "Seek and you shall find" - says a tantalizing five-century-old message painted on a fresco in the council hall of Florence's Palazzo Vecchio.Researchers now believe these cryptic words could be a clue to the location of a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting and are pressing local authorities to allow them to seek the masterpiece of Renaissance art.
Maurizio Seracini, an Italian art researcher, first noticed the message during an initial survey of the hall 30 years ago, but his team then lacked the technology to see what lay behind Giorgio Vasari's fresco of the Battle of Marciano in the Chiana Valley.
Radar and X-ray scans conducted between 2002 and 2003 now place the message at the centre of a cavity that lies behind the fresco, which may conceal Leonardo's unfinished mural painting of the Battle of Anghiari - one of the greatest works of the Tuscan master - Seracini said.
"At the time, this was considered the masterpiece of masterpieces," Seracini told The Associated Press. "It would be like discovering a new Mona Lisa or a new Last Supper."
Leonardo's mural was thought to have been destroyed in the mid-16th century when artist, writer and architect Vasari conducted renovation works in the hall that once served as Florence's seat of power. He then covered the walls with his own paintings.
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posted 22 June 2005 09:14 AM
