Post date: Mar 12, 2012 8:37:49 PM
FLORENCE, ITALY (MARCH 12, 2012) (REUTERS) - Art researchers and scientists said on Monday (March 12) that a high-tech project using tiny video probes has uncovered evidence that a fresco painting by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci lost for five centuries may still exist behind a wall of Florence's city hall.
'Seek and you shall find' are the words almost hidden in the midst of an immense painting of a battle scene by 16th-century Italian artist Giorgio Vasari. Now researchers say they could have found the significance of that message - a lost work by Renaissance master Leonardo Da Vinci.
The project to find what has come to be known as the "Lost Leonardo" has been controversial, in part because researchers had to drill several holes into an existing work and because not all agree that the Leonardo fresco is still there.
At the start of the 16th century, Florence's leaders commissioned Leonardo, then at the height of his career, to paint a massive fresco celebrating the Florentine Republic's victory over the Milanese in a battle on the plains of Anghiari that took place on June 29, 1440.
Leonardo, who loathed war as "a most beastly madness," depicted a group of horses and riders furiously fighting.
He abandoned the project a year after he started, probably because a new experimental technique for frescoes failed. But some of his preparatory studies remain, as well as other artists' copies of the original fresco.
All traces of the original were lost more than 50 years later when Giorgio Vasari renovated the great Sala dei Cinquecento in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio and was ordered to paint a new fresco, "The Battle of Marciano," to accommodate the higher walls.
Some believe that Vasari was loathe to destroy Leonardo's work, so he built a new wall with an air gap of several centimetres in front of the Leonardo in order to preserve what was left. The words "Cerca e trova" ("Seek and you shall find") written into Vasari's painting have also led many to believe a hidden mystery lies behind his work.
Researchers used tiny, medical-style endoscopic probes and other high-tech tools inserted through existing cracks in the outer wall holding the Vasari fresco and took samples of substances.
Maurizio Seracini, an engineer and expert in art diagnostics who has been on the trail of the "Lost Leonardo" for three decades, said he found traces of pigments used exclusively by Leonardo.
"I could call this a lucky combination, nevertheless undoubtedly having found these pigments, having found organic material as well, cannot be just a coincidence," he said.
The research work was carried out by the U.S. National Geographic Society, the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology at the University of California at San Diego and Italian art officials.
"I am quite convinced that something has been found and yes it is a very historic day" said Terry Garcia, an executive vice president of the U.S. National Geographic Society, which sponsored the research.
"....there is overwhelming historical documentation that indicates the Leonardo was painted, it was behind the wall and it was in existence at the time that Vasari painted his fresco" he said.
"There is overwhelming historic documentation that indicates that the Leonardo was painted, that it was behind the wall and that it was in existence at the time that Vasari painted" Garcia said.
But some art historians are skeptical, saying the fresco of Battle of Anghiari was most likely destroyed before Vasari painted his new fresco.
Some art historians working on the project withdrew their support and Italia Nostra, Italy's leading nature and arts conservation group, asked Florentine authorities to halt it because they said it risked harming the Vassari fresco and because they believed it was unlikely that the original Leonardo was there.
Garcia dismissed the criticism. "I think we have demonstrated that those who said the Leonardo was not behind the wall, that they are wrong," he said.
"All of the holes that were put into the mural were either in areas that had been previously restored or in fissures, so the original Vassari was not touched," he said.
Florence mayor Matteo Renzi said he believed the Leonardo is behind the wall and that modern technology would allow the public to appreciate both the Leonardo and Vasari.