Hunt for Da Vinci painting will resume[Missing "Battle of Anghiari"]

A real-life Da Vinci mystery, complete with tantalizing clues and sharp art sleuths, may soon be solved, as researchers resume the search for a lost Leonardo masterpiece believed to be hidden within a wall in a Florence palace.

Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli and officials in the Tuscan city announced this week they had given approval for renewed exploration in the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of power for various Florence rulers, including the Medici family in the 16th century. There, some researchers believe, a cavity in a wall may have preserved Leonardo's unfinished painted mural of the "Battle of Anghiari" for more than four centuries.

"We took this decision to verify conclusively if the cavity exists and if there are traces of the fresco," Rutelli said during a visit in Florence.

The search for the Renaissance masterpiece began about 30 years ago, when the art researcher Maurizio Seracini noticed a cryptic message painted on one of the frescoes decorating the "Hall of the 500."

"Cerca, trova" — "seek and you shall find" — said the words on a tiny green flag in the "Battle of Marciano in the Chiana Valley," one of the military scenes painted by the 16th-century artist Giorgio Vasari.

Between 2002 and 2003, radar and X-ray scans allowed Seracini and his team to find a cavity behind the fresco that is the right size to cocoon Leonardo's work, which was long thought to have been destroyed when Vasari renovated the hall in the mid-16th century.

Shortly after the initial discovery, Seracini's decades-long quest came to a standstill when authorities refused to renew his survey permit.

"We are not talking about a search like any other," Seracini told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "We are searching for Leonardo's greatest masterpiece, considered as such also by his contemporaries."

Leonardo began working on the "Battle of Anghiari" in 1505, when he was 53. He worked alongside fellow artist and rival Michelangelo, who had been commissioned to decorate the opposite wall of the council hall, which was to have scenes of the Florentine republic's military triumphs.

The pairing of two great artists created ripples of excitement in art-loving Florence, but both men soon left for other cities.

Michelangelo never went beyond the preparatory work for his "Battle of Cascina," but Leonardo did eventually paint his battle's centerpiece — a violent clash of horses and men called the "Fight for the Flag," which is known today through Leonardo's preparatory studies and copies made by other artists.

Some chroniclers of the time said Da Vinci had experimented with unstable paints that had rapidly degraded, leaving the painting irreparably damaged.

But Seracini said documents show that at least the centerpiece was admired and copied for decades, until Vasari began his work at Palazzo Vecchio. Vasari himself, who wrote biographies of several artists including Leonardo, would have been loath to destroy Leonardo's work. He is known to have salvaged other art by leaving works cocooned between walls when he made renovations, the researcher said.

Seracini, whose research on another Leonardo painting is quoted in Dan Brown's best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code," is an engineer who has spent the last three decades conducting scientific investigations on art treasures.

Florence city officials said no date has been set for the new investigation because details still needed approval.

While the new research will be supervised by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, one of Italy's top restoration institutes, Seracini will be on the team, said Alessandra Garzanti, a city spokeswoman.

"He brought this forward until now, it would be stupid to leave him out," she said.

Once the work starts, researchers would need a year and a half to give a definitive answer on whether Leonardo's masterpiece is there, Seracini said.

The work would include documentary research to determine which chemicals Leonardo used to paint the fresco, and subsequent scans to see if those pigments are present behind the wall, he said.

Seracini declined to reveal how the scans would work, saying the method was still experimental. However, he said the analysis would not involve probes or other instruments that would damage the overlying Vasari fresco.

Palazzo Vecchio

Address: Piazza Signoria

The oldest part of Palazzo Vecchio may be the work of Arnolfo di Cambio (1245-1302) and was built at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth century as the seat of the Priors. Successive additions of the fifteenth and above all of the sixteenth centuries have changed the scale of the rear of the palace without however modifying the massive appearance of the huge blocks, projecting gallery and assymmetrical tower dominating Piazza Signoria.

Initially the seat of Signoria, temporarily housed the Grand Ducal family under Cosimo I de' Medici before their transfer to Palazzo Pitti. It was in this period (1550-65) that Vasari transformed it, sumptuously redecorating the newly reconstructed interiors for the palace's role both as the seat of government and official residence of the ruling family. The entire palace is a museum, especially the so-called "Monumental Quarters".

Let us take the most important interiors in order, starting with the first entrance courtyard with its white and gold stuccoes and sixteenth century frescoes over an elegant structure of the second half of the fifteenth century. One then arrives immediately in the old Armoury, where the Town Council of Florence organizes frequent exhibitions. On the first floor is the grandiose Salone dei Cinquecento, the work of Cronaca (1495) which held the assemblies of the General Council of the People under the State reforms brought about by Savonarola. The walls of this room should have been frescoed by Michelangelo and Leonardo; the actual appearance of the interior is the work of Vasari and his pupils and dates from the second half of the sixteenth century. The panelled ceiling and wall frescoes, the "Udienza" (the raised section of the room with statues by Bandinelli and Caccini) and the sculptures of De' Rossi showing the Deeds of Hercules, all belong to the complex symbolism and precise historical references glorifying the Medici. Also in the Salone is Michelangelo's Genius of Victory.

In contrast to the grandiose Salone, but equally sumptuous, is the little Studiolo of Francesco I, a jewel of Mannerist art and sensibility to which the prince would retire to gaze at his treasures. This dates from around 1570. Each one of the rooms on the first floor is dedicated to a personality of the Medici family such as Cosimo the Elder, Lorenzo, Leo X and so on, and is appropriately frescoed. On the second floor is the Apartment of the Elements and the Apartment of Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I. Even amid its rich decorations, the little chapel of Eleonora of Toledo is outstanding with its magnificent frescoes by Bronzino (1503-1572). This is followed by the great public rooms, the Audience Chamber and the Lily Chamber, with rich ceilings, decorations and doors of the fifteenth century. Throughout the palace art and history blend to remind one constantly of its former glories.

In the final area of the monumental quarters is the setting for the "Loeser Collection" left to the Florentine Town Council by the American art critic Charles Loeser on his death in 1928.
This comprises painting and sculpture mainly of the Tuscan school and ranging from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century to include works by Tino da Camaino, Berruguete, Rustici, Bronzino and Cellini.

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