Art historians claim to have found long-lost da Vinci fresco hidden behind work of another Renaissance master
A Dan Brown style hunt for a lost 500-year-old Leonardo da Vinci fresco said to be hidden behind the wall of an Italian palazzo has sparked off a huge row among art experts.
For years - in what is worthy of a plot by the author of blockbuster The Da Vinci Code - art historians have debated the existence of da Vinci's fabled work the Battle of Anghiari with some claiming that it lies behind a wall on which the work of another Renaissance master Giorgio Vasari is painted.
Eventually last week after years of discussions officials in Florence gave the go ahead for holes to be drilled through the wall in the famous Salone dei Cinquecento in the Tuscan city's town hall to see once and for all if the fresco does exist or not.
Found at last? The original Battle of Anghiari fresco by Leonardo da Vinci has been missing for centuries, but art historians believe they may have found it behind a work by Giorgio Vasari in Florence
However the idea of drilling holes through Vasari's fresco has horrified numerous experts who put together an official letter of complaint headed by Keith Christiansen, vice president of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, historian Salvatore Settis and art critic Carlo Ginzburg.
They described the hunt for the lost Leonardo as 'fantasy', adding that the 'work probably did not exist and that the wrong wall is being drilled through, with damage being caused to the Vasari work'.
As part of the protest today an official complaint was lodged with the prosecutors in Florence who said they would investigate and see if the crime of 'damaging a work of art' has been committed.
Even Cecilia Frosinini, director of frescoes at Florence's famous Opificio delle Pietre Dure which has undertaken restoration projects on numerous works, has expressed her horror at the decision to go ahead with the $250,000 search, sponsored by National Geographic.
She said: 'I decided not to have anything to do with drilling through the wall for the precise reason that I did not want one of Giorgio Vasari's best preserved works to be sacrificed.'
The research is being led by professor Maurizio Seracini of the University of California, a da Vinci expert and who has made the hunt for the Battle ofAnghiari a personal crusade which has gone on for almost forty years.
Using a series of drills, holes have been bored through the wall and microcameras inserted to see if there are any hidden spaces or cavities in the famous Salone dei Cinquecento.
Professor Seracini said: 'We found a space behind it, indicating there's another wall. Now we have to see if it was ever frescoed, and let's hope it's the Anghiari.
'I expect the state of conservation (of the fresco) to be good, or in any case the same as it was when the original wall was covered by the Vasari.'
Professor Seracini, who found evidence of the original wall six years ago, also happens to be the only real-life character in Dan Brown's bestselling thriller The Da Vinci Code.
Speaking of the controversy he said: 'I really don't understand what all this fuss is about. It is very upsetting - it strikes me as being an attempt to block legitimate research.
'This is an attack by demagogues which threatens to make us a laughing stock across the world.'
Florence mayor Matteo Renzi, who gave the go ahead said: 'The techniques that are being used are in accordance with all the rules of the game but also bearing in mind the quality of Vasari's work.
'This is an opportunity to see what is behind the Vasari and it is an important part of our history.
'We're poised to put an end to a great search, we're hoping the Battle of Anghiari is there. Over the next two or three months we'll have the definitive word on the greatest mystery in the history of art.'
The world's top Leonardo scholar, Carlo Pedretti, is also convinced the fresco is hiding in the palazzo and said: 'I really believe it's behind that wall. Renaissance accounts showed the fresco can only be there but whether it will be found intact is another story.'
The city state of Florence commissioned The Battle of Anghiari to celebrate its famous victory over the Duchy of Milan on June 29, 1440 and it was described by sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) as a 'ground-breaking masterpiece' that any artist simply had to see and study.
In a 1549 letter to a Venetian friend, Florentine painter Anton Francesco Doni called it 'a miraculous thing' and the work has long been known from sketches and copies.
But the original was thought lost for ever - a victim of da Vinci's typically unorthodox decision to jettison the traditional technique of applying paint to wet plaster - he applied oils onto the plaster and like the Last Supper it soon began to crumble.
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