FLORENCE, ITALY – A fresco painted by Leonardo da Vinci may have been discovered in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio around 500 years after another Renaissance painting took its place on the walls of one of Italy’s most important palaces.
Researchers coordinated by National Geographic Society said paint samples drawn from a wall behind Giorgio Vasari’s “The Battle of Marciano” may have the same chemical makeup as pigment used in da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and belong to the Renaissance master’s “The Battle of Anghiari” – a representation of a 1440 battle between Milan and a coalition of Italian city states led by Florence.
Art historians largely believed “The Battle of Anghiari” was destroyed by Vasari. But the researchers believe the da Vinci admirer, may have saved the work by enclosing it between walls. The researchers confirmed the existence of a hollow space between the walls over which Vasari painted his fresco.
“These data are very encouraging,” said Maurizio Seracini, an engineer from the University of California in San Diego who has led the research, during a Monday press conference in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.
Seracini, who began searching for the lost work more than 30 years ago, has said a possible clue to the existence of da Vinci’s work was found in Vasari’s work.
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