Real-Life "Da Vinci Code": Search Intensifies for Major Lost Leonardo

Anyone who attended the Metropolitan Museum's extraordinary Leonardo da Vinci drawings exhibition four years ago was painfully aware of the elephant not in the room: Although a section of the exhibition was devoted to Leonardo's lost masterpiece, the "Battle of Anghiari," only small fragmentary sketches, preparatory to this fabled fresco, were displayed. "No complete copy of the Anghiari composition is extant," according to the Met's catalogue.

Now comes word that the indefatigable Italian Culture Minister, Francesco Rutelli, "has greenlighted a dig behind a 'secret' wall in [Florence's] Palazzo Vecchio that may hide the fresco of the Battle of Anghiari." ANSA, the Italian news agency, reported on Thursday:

The search will be led by art sleuth Maurizio Seracini, the one real-life character in Dan Brown's bestselling thriller, "The Da Vinci Code," and the man who uncovered the wall two years ago.

As in any good mystery, the Anghiari anglers have a tantalizing clue. Ariel David of the Associated Press reported yesterday that Seracini had long ago noticed a "cryptic message" written on a tiny green flag painted on a fresco by Giorgio Vasari." It says:

Cerca, trova. (Seek and you shall find.)

Go to the above-linked AP article to see an image of the flag and its inscription.

It is in the cavity behind the Vasari fresco, "Battle of Marciano in the Chiana Valley," located in the in the Hall of the 500, that some experts (most notably Leonardo scholar Carlo Pedretti), believe the lost Anghiari fresco may possibly be hidden.

Quick, I need a literary agent!