Does this battle scene hold key to Leonardo's lost masterpiece?

[emad]

Does this battle scene hold key to Leonardo's lost masterpiece?
From Richard Owen in Rome

http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,207446,00.jpg


IT IS a mystery that has confounded the art world for generations: what became of the Leonardo masterpiece, described as miraculous for its breathtaking beauty and scale, which has not been seen for 500 years? First, the facts: in 1505 Leonardo da Vinci began a vast work, The Battle of Anghiari, on a wall in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. The work, a whirl of horses and soldiers in battle, was to commemorate Florence’s defeat of Milanese forces in 1440. It was described at the time as a miraculous thing.

What happened next is less than clear. It is not even known if the painting was finished, or whether it later suffered irreparable damage. The work vanished and, in the process, became a mystery worthy of Dan Brown’s fictional thriller, The Da Vinci Code.

Now art experts, backed by a British foundation, say that they are convinced that the masterpiece is hidden behind a later Renaissance fresco, and the one real person to feature in The Da Vinci Code wants to pierce a hole in it and use an endoscope to prove that the masterpiece lies behind it.

But Maurizio Seracini, an engineer who specialises in using medical techniques to investigate artworks, faces opposition from fellow art historians who claim that the lost Leonardo is a myth and fear that the huge Giorgio Vasari painting that covers an entire wall in the council chamber of the Palazzo Vecchio will suffer extensive damage for no good reason.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1658915,00.html

MAYBE this story's a teaser for the other Leonardo poser: the FOUR other Mona Lisas, in secluded private UK/US ownership for the past 40 years.....

[Ready4Change]

1. It it's there, THEN what do they do?

To me that's a problem. If Leonardos work is behind this one, does someone make a judgement about which is more valuable to have in view?