In the Da Vinci Code, Robert Langdon, the professor of iconology and symbology at Harvard University, deciphered the secret hidden in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci to find the holy grail. In reality, Maurizio Seracini is on a quest to find one of the holy grails in art history - Da Vinci’s lost painting The Battle of Anghiari.

Otherwise known as “The Lost Leonardo”, The Battle of Anghiari was an uncompleted work by Leonardo Da Vinci believed to be in Hall of 500 in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. The painting commissioned in 1504 by Piero Soderini, one of the heads of Republic of Florence, depicts the Republic’s victory in the plains of Anghiari. Da Vinci swiftly started work on the painting, hanging up a large cartoon depicting a violent clash between horses with their horsemen lock in battle.

In 1505, Da Vinci started painting what was to be his largest work. However, disaster plagued it from the start. The bad weather during painting caused the cartoon to be torn. Further, when he tried applying oil colors on the wall, the paint began to drip. In a last ditch effort to save the painting, Da Vinci use lighted braziers to speed the paint’s drying process. This caused the paint to drip down further. Only the lower part was able to be saved while the upper part’s color intermingled. Da Vinci then abandoned the painting.

It stood for about half a century in Hall of 500 where it was widely admired. Many including Raphael, one of the masters during the Renaissance came and copied it. Giorgio Vasari, an Italian painter and art historian during the Renaissance, was breathless in his admiration. “It would be impossible to express the inventiveness of Leonardo’s design for the soldiers’ uniforms, which he sketched in all their variety, or the crests of the helmets and other ornaments, not to mention the incredible skill he demonstrated in the shape and features of the horses, which Leonardo, better than any other master, created with their boldness, muscles and graceful beauty.”

Then it vanished. When the Republic fell to the Medici, the hall was enlarged and Vasari was commissioned to cover the walls with murals of military victories by the Medicis. The once legendary painting was then largely forgotten, only admired through Peter Paul Rubens copy in the Paris Lourve and lamented by art historians.

In 1975, Seracini after graduating from University of California, San Diego joined the Leonardo Project to determine the existence of Da Vinci’s mural. There, hidden in Vasari’s mural was a soldier holding a waved flag with the words Cerca Trova - He who seeks, finds. This Seracini believes confirms what many has long suspected - that Vasari instead of destroying the mural, he hid it.

Imaging technologies in the 1970s was not powerful enough to see what was behind the walls. Only in 2000, with the financial backing of philanthropist Loel Guinness was Seracini able to resume work. Using multispectral imaging technology, Seracini and a group of scientists carefully analyzed the room using laser, infrared and ultraviolet cameras. From the data obtained, they were able to map out the original room before the reconstruction by Vasari. And by using 16th century blueprints of the room, they were able to pinpoint the exact location where the painting was drawn which coincidentally enough is behind the Vasari mural with the cryptic words. Through their research, they discovered a thin layer of air behind the brick wall, giving the possible indication that Vasari’s painting was build over the original wall.

The next challenge was figuring out a way to “see” through the wall with Vasari’s painting without destroying it. The idea was to beam neutrons and construct an image of the painting by the particles it reflect. With help of the research community, Seracini developed devices that can detect neutrons reflected by hydrogen atoms that exist in the organic materials used in Da Vinci’s painting which does not exist in Vasari’s water based fresco mural. Another device is able to detect the gamma rays produced in the collisions between neutrons and the inorganic materials exist in the pigments of the paint.

In 2003, the team led by Seracini was dismayed to find their search suspended by the local authorities. In 2006, Guinness was able to get a documentary about the search aired on British TV. This led to an increase international interest in the project and with the new non-invasive technology available, allowed the Italian government to give their permission. Testings are now done to fine tune the devices before they are used on the delicate paintings.

The finding of the painting will be a small step in art history, but regardless of the outcome, the research is a great leap in applying science in analyzing art.