Hunt for Da Vinci painting will resume - Yahoo! News: "ROME - 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."
2 comments:
If this story triggers deja vu amongst Golden Age mystery readers, I can enlighten. A lost Leonardo painting, "Detail from the Battle of the Standard", based on the abandoned fresco project, is the MacGuffin in Ellery Queen's The Greek Coffin Mystery, 1932.
Art Scott
Thanks, Art. I'd forgotten that completely.
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