FLORENCE -- After 32 years on the trail of Leonardo da Vinci's lost masterpiece "The Battle of Anghiari", Maurizio Seracini thinks he is on the verge of solving one of the art world's greatest mysteries.

The Italian engineer and art expert reckons he knows where the fresco, which disappeared nearly five centuries ago, might be hidden -- behind a wall right where it was painted, in Florence's Renaissance town hall [the Palazzo Vecchio].

Now that the Italian government has given him the go-ahead to complete his investigation, Seracini says he is just a few months away from finding out once and for all.