Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Maurizio Seracini treats Palazzo Vecchio’s imposing Salone dei Cinquecento in Florence almost as if it were his living room.
He seats himself down on one of the chairs in the richly embellished frescoed hall and begins to recounts his 30-year quest to locate one of art’s most important treasures.
“And I won’t be giving up, not as long as my brain keeps working,” he says, ignoring the many tourists who are wandering around the room.
As far as lost art works go, none are more fascinating than the one Seracini believes he has found: The Battle of Anghiari, a four by six-and-a-half metre large mural described by experts as the most outstanding work ever created by art’s greatest genius, Leonardo da Vinci.
“What I have been looking for was considered by Leonardo’s contemporaries as the absolute masterpiece of the Renaissance,” the blue-eyed 59-year-old art detective says.
Professor Martin Kemp of Oxford University is following Seracini’s efforts and says the mural, which is believed to depict a fierce battle between two men ensconced on battle horses, was “a seminal painting”.
“The Mona Lisa rewrote portraiture. The Last Supper rewrote standard narrative painting. The Battle of Anghiari rewrote the portrayal of violent motion,” Professor Kemp recently told The Observer.
The mural was commissioned by the Florentine Republic in 1503 to celebrate its victory in a battle against the Milanese. Leonardo began painting it two years later but never finished it. In 1506 he left for Milan to work for the King of France and never returned.
Years later, the Republic fell and the Medici family, allies of the Milanese, came into power in Florence. In 1563, they asked Giorgio Vasari, a painter and architect, to renovate the hall and paint new murals celebrating their exploits.
All trace of the Battle of Anghiari was lost.
But Seracini is adamant that it was not destroyed, noting that Vasari was a great fan of Leonardo and praised him profusely in his 1550 biography of the Florentine artist.
Seracini believes the lost painting is still perfectly preserved, hidden behind a wall erected by Vasari.
During his search Seracini stumbled upon a revealing clue: A minuscule inscription, on a green flag 12 metres high up, bearing the words “Cerca Trova” (He who searches shall find).
Radar surveys and thermal imaging have detected a two-centimetre wide cavity behind the Vasari fresco that carries the Cerca Trova inscription.
Seracini would now like to use equipment to activate pigments behind Vasari’s wall to determine once and for all whether Leonardo’s masterpiece is indeed where he believes it should be.
Unfortunately, while he has received the backing of Italy’s new culture minister, Francesco Rutelli, during a visit to Florence in August, his efforts are being blocked by the local city council, which is refusing to renew his research permit.
Until the impasse is resolved, Leonardo fans can enjoy an exhibition of his drawings, including sketches on the lost Battle of Anghiari, which opened in Florence on October 3.
