It was considered by many of Leonardo da Vinci’s peers to be his greatest masterpiece. But the unfinished mural of the Battle of Anghiari that graced the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence has not been seen since the mid-16th century when the Medici grand duke Cosimo commissioned a renovation and redecoration of the great hall.

The fresco was long presumed lost forever behind the new paintings. But Maurizio Seracini, an Italian expert in high-technology art analysis, will soon deploy the cutting-edge science of a neutron generator and gamma ray detector in an attempt to prove that the mural is actually preserved beneath a wall built just in front of it during the remodelling.