The Search for Leonardo da Vinci's "Battle of Anghiari"

In May 2007 Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage Francesco Rutelli approved a resumption of efforts to locate a long-lost masterpiece mural by Leonardo da Vinci. The Battle of Anghiari disappeared nearly 500 years ago when the Hall of the 500 in the Palazzo Vecchio was remodeled by Giorgio Vasari, starting in 1563. But was "Anghiari" destroyed? Did Vasari protect it behind his own new mural? And if the da Vinci masterpiece remained in place, did it crumble - or has it survived to this day?

Those questions have echoed through the centuries, but with no way to resolve the enigma until modern technology became available to see "beyond the visible." The Italian government appointed CISA3 director Maurizio Seracini to lead the scientific search for Anghiari. Historians have long suspected that Vasari's great respect for da Vinci's work prompted him to paint his fresco on a brick wall built in front of the original masterpiece, in order to preserve Leonardo's masterpiece.

Seracini has been involved in the search for Anghiari since 1975, when as a recent UCSD bioengineering alumnus, he joined the "Leonardo Project" (initially funded by the Armand Hammer Foundation, Kress Foundation and Smithsonian Institute) to determine whether the Leonardo mural survived. At that time, new imaging technologies provided tantalizing new clues, but those technologies fell short of being able to let researchers "see" clearly beyond the current wall on which the Vasari fresco was painted. The project was halted in 1977, and Seracini didn't resume a full-scale search for Anghiari until the year 2000, when Guinness brewing heir and Kalpa Group president Loel Guinness agreed to fund the search. Adapting the latest refinements in multispectral imaging to the task, Seracini - then-president of his own art forensics firm, Editech, in Florence - undertook a methodical analysis of the Hall of the 500, reconstructing changes to the structure, and eventually discovering that there is a thin layer of air behind the brick wall on which the Vasari fresco was painted. This could indicate that the brick wall was built on top of the original wall, raising hopes that Vasari did so to hide or protect the da Vinci masterpiece (as he had done to save other masterpieces by other artists). In 2003, the search was suspended by local authorities. But as it became apparent that new technology might once and for all determine whether the Battle of Anghiari survived half a millennium hidden from view, growing interest from international media and cultural institutions led the city of Florence and the Italian government to rescind the moratorium.

With new-found technical capabilities at the University of California, San Diego and its California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), which he joined in 2006, Maurizio Seracini has mapped out an ambitious plan to solve the Anghiari puzzle. The Italian government has set a deadline of December 2008 for results of the current project. The deadline is tight, because CISA3 - in conjunction with engineers at Calit2 and partner institutions - must still finalize the technology that will allow Seracini to look deep inside the walls and detect hoped-for remnants of Leonardo's masterpiece, all this without damaging the existing Vasari mural.

To do this, CISA3 must first finalize the portable but powerful devices to be used, and test the technology on a mock wall to be built in San Diego from bricks, stones and mortar from the Hall of the 500 (from the same batch of bricks used to build the wall on which the Vasari is painted). Scientists from Italy's top renovation institute, the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, will visit San Diego to paint murals on the mock walls, one that is representative of Vasari's fresco, and the other using the same materials and methodologies that Leonardo da Vinci is believed to have used on the Battle of Anghiari. If those tests prove successful, CISA3 will deploy the new technology to Florence for a final effort to look inside the wall for pigments and materials known to be used by Leonardo.

Even as work gets underway, the Committee of the Leonardo project and the University of California are seeking the financial support needed to complete the search. It is estimated to cost several million dollars, with funding coming from philanthropic individuals (through groups such as Friends of CISA3 as well as Friends of Florence), corporate sponsors (e.g., Giunti Editore), and private foundations (such as Legler Benbough Foundation). Meanwhile, international media, including the New York Times, CBS's 60 Minutes and National Geographic, are devoting increasing attention to the search that has caught the world's attention - and imagination - and there is no sign of abatement until once and for all we discover the true fate of Leonardo's missing masterpiece.