Researchers think clue may lead to a lost masterpiece

ROME — "Cerca, trova" — seek and you shall find — says a tantalizing five-century-old message painted on a fresco in the council hall of Florence's Palazzo Vecchio.

Researchers now believe these cryptic words could be a clue to the location of a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting and are pressing local authorities to allow them to search for the masterpiece of Renaissance art.

Maurizio Seracini, an Italian art researcher, first noticed the message during a survey of the hall 30 years ago, but his team lacked the technology then to see what lay behind Giorgio Vasari's 16th-century fresco, "Battle of Marciano in the Chiana Valley."

However, radar and X-ray scans conducted between 2002 and 2003 have detected a cavity behind the section of wall the message was painted on, which Seracini believes may conceal Leonardo's unfinished mural painting, the "Battle of Anghiari."

Considered one of Leonardo's greatest works, the mural is known today through the Tuscan master's preparatory studies and copies made by other artists.

"At the time, this was considered the masterpiece of masterpieces," Seracini told the Associated Press. Recovering it "would be like discovering a new Mona Lisa or a new Last Supper."

Leonardo's mural was thought to have been destroyed in the mid-16th century when artist, writer and architect Vasari renovated the hall that once served as Florence's seat of power. He then covered the walls with his own paintings.

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

Michelangelo never went beyond the preparatory work for his "Battle of Cascina," but Leonardo did paint his battle's centerpiece — a violent clash of horses and men called the "Fight for the Flag."

Leonardo later abandoned the work and left for Milan. Some chroniclers of the time said the artist had experimented with unstable paints that had rapidly degraded, leaving the painting irreparably damaged.

"For generations these stories have held us back, but there are documents that say otherwise," Seracini said.

"Maybe other parts were damaged, but we know that 60 years later, when Vasari began his works, the painting was still visible and people still came to marvel at it."