This article titled “Lost Leonardo Da Vinci battle scene sparks row between art historians” was written by Tom Kington in Rome, for The Guardian on Monday 5th December 2011 20.08 UTC
A 35-year hunt for a lost masterpiece by Leonardo Da Vinci now reaching its hi-tech climax in Florence is facing a backlash from more than 100 art historians on both sides of the Atlantic who have signed a petition seeking to stop the work that could uncover it.
The row centres on a wall in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio bearing a 16th century fresco which, according to researcher Maurizio Seracini, conceals another wall on which Da Vinci started painting The Battle of Anghiari, a monumental battle scene considered by some his finest work.
Seracini, who works at the University of California, San Diego, and is featured in Dan Brown’s mystery The Da Vinci Code, inserted tiny cameras through drilled holes in the main wall a week ago and found a 2cm cavity. Traces of an organic pigment were located on the back wall, convincing some that the Da Vinci masterpiece exists. With full results expected in the new year, Florence’s mayor, Matteo Renzi claimed: “We are finally there – after five centuries we are able finally to resolve this mystery.”
But 150 art historians from museums including the New York Met and the National Gallery in London have signed a petition to stop the work, angry at the holes being drilled in the wall which bears its own fresco, Giorgio Vasari’s The Battle of Marciano in Val di Chiana, painted in 1563.
“Seracini just doesn’t know his art history,” said Tomaso Montanari, the Italian art history professor who started the petition. Backing the experts, the Italian heritage group Italia Nostra has complained to Florence magistrates, who have opened an investigation.
“This is a wasted expense when we need every penny for restoring the art we have,” said Italia Nostra president Alessandra Mottola Molfino. “Instead of restoring the Vasari fresco we are drilling holes in it.”
Da Vinci started work in 1504 on his battle scene using an experimental oil paint technique that failed miserably, dripping before it dried and prompting him to abandon the work.
Scenes he completed were however widely copied, including by Rubens, whose drawing of one scene hangs in the Louvre.
After 1555 the room was renovated and Da Vinci’s half-finished painting was lost.
Seracini’s suspicions that Vasari was loth to destroy Da Vinci’s work, preferring to brick it up and add his own fresco, were stoked when he found Vasari had painted a soldier in his fresco holding a flag on which was written: “He who seeks, finds.”
Using a radar he revealed the cavity behind the fresco.
But Montanari is not convinced. “Vasari knew how to remove works by other people while keeping them intact. What sense would there have been sealing up the Da Vinci unless you get into childish Dan Brown logic?”
Montanari launched the petition last week after Cecilia Frosinone, an expert from a Florence art restoration institute working with Seracini, resigned on “ethical” grounds after permission was given by Italy’s culture minister to drill seven holes in the Vasari fresco.
“We don’t have external controls on the work any more and that is what we want restored,” he said.
On Monday Seracini fought back, describing the petition as a bid “by the excluded to block extraordinary research”, adding: “This demagogic attack risks Italy being derided around the world.”
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
