Lost Da Vinci fresco bricked up behind Vasari work?

Art experts have signed a petition to stop drilling into a fresco in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio which may be hiding a Leonardo Da Vinci work.

Around 150 historians from around the world have joined forces claiming it is damaging the existing work, Giorgio Vasari's The Battle of Marciano. Researcher Maurizio Seracini believes Da Vinci's unfinished The Battle of Anghiari lies beneath on a second wall. Drilling began last week to allow cameras inside the outer wall.

It is believed Da Vinci started painting his fresco – which is considered by some to be his finest work – in 1504 but abandoned the project because of problems arising from his experimental oil painting technique. The room was later renovated and Vasari painted his fresco in 1563.

Seracini believes Vasari did not want to destroy Da Vinci's work and instead bricked it up behind a new wall on which he painted. His theory was stimulated after finding a soldier on Vasari's work holding a small flag bearing the words: “He who seeks, finds.”

A radar survey carried out last year revealed a hollow space between Vasari's brick wall and the original stone wall.

via BBC News

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.