SCI/TECH: "Cerca Trova" may point to long-lost da Vinci Masterpiece

"Cerca trova" - seek and you shall find - reads the green flag in Giorgio Vasari's "Battle of Marciano in the Chiana Valley", a 16th Century fresco located in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio. Now radar and x-ray scans conducted in 2002 and 2003 have detected a cavity behind the section of wall the message is on, and Maurizio Seracini, an Italian art researcher, thinks it may hold Leonardo's unfinished masterpiece mural, the "Battle of Anghiari".



It would be fantastic to say the least if this turns out to be true. A da Vinci masterpiece known today only through his preparatory studies and copies made by other artists hidden behind a wall in the Palazzo Vecchio for nearly five hundred years? I wonder how they propose to go in there and get it out? Right now they are faced with another year of work using microprobes to verify their findings.

I understand them not wanting to damage the fresco the hidden hollow is behind but dont walls generally have 2 sides?

Why cant they come into the hollow from behind the fresco? Is there another fresco on the other side of the wall?

Even better would be to 'probe' from below the cavity between the walls.
That would be safer for the exploration, as gravity would take care of any dust or debris.

Could they not like x-ray the wall or something?

Heh, read line 1 of the introduction. X-ray scans lead to this initial discovery.