Using imaging techniques to detect a hidden Renaissance mural

Los Angeles Times: With the help of ultrasound, infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, and other imaging technologies, Maurizio Seracini and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, may have found a missing masterpiece by Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci. In the early 1500s, Leonardo had been commissioned to decorate the Hall of 500 in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. However, he completed just one central scene before abandoning the project. Believing The Battle of Anghiari could lie behind frescoes painted decades later by Giorgio Vasari, the researchers used imaging techniques to virtually peel away the layers of pigment to see underneath. The search has stirred up controversy by leading art historians who say the researchers are destroying Vasari’s masterpiece in order to search for one that may not even be there. Seracini counters that although his team did have to drill some small holes through Vasari’s fresco to insert tiny probes, the holes were made in areas where the original paint was already missing.