Originally published October 9 2005
Investigation of Da Vinci underdrawing nears its completion
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Art detective Maurizio Seracini, made famous in Dan Brown's blockbuster novel "The Da Vinci Code," reveals the findings of his four-year investigation into the underdrawing of a painting attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci.
Brown calls him an "art diagnostician", which is not a bad description for someone who probes paintings with state-of-the-art-technology, often to advise museums, dealers and collectors on their restoration.
Article continues The Da Vinci Code revolves around the contention that Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings are full of symbolic allusions to a secret claimed to have been preserved by successors of the defunct medieval order of Knights Templar - that Christ married Mary Magdalene and had a family whose descendants are alive today.
What attracted Brown to Mr Seracini was his epic investigation into what lies below the surface of the Adoration of the Magi, a work the art detective believes was sketched by Da Vinci, but painted over by someone else.
As Brown related, infra-red photography had revealed many differences between the painting and the under-drawing.
Mr Seracini has examined the painting minutely using a technique that exploits the fact infra-red light passes through paint but reflects off the under-drawing.
As the photographs show, he and his team have conjured from below the amber-brown layer with which much of the panel is covered a collection of Da Vinci's drawings that were hidden for more than five centuries.
Perhaps the most important discovery for critics and historians is that the two horsemen in the upper right corner are just one small part of what was originally a full-blown battle scene.
One question raised by Mr Seracini's painstaking investigation is why Da Vinci wanted to include such a bloody scene in a nativity painting, and why he - or someone else - thought better of it.
But another question, and the one that will fascinate the Dan Brown fans, is what Da Vinci was up to on the other side of the painting in the last area of the panel to be fully rendered by Mr Seracini's technicians.
Mr Seracini believes this upper layer was applied a half-century or more after Da Vinci.
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