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This column is for self study or classroom use and gives guided help with reading the wide variety of writing styles and topics that appear as feature articles in the Bangkok Post. The lessons include background information, skill building practice and vocabulary explanations. January 30, 2007   A real-life Da Vinci mystery INTRODUCTION

You probably know about the very popular mystery book and movie named The Da Vinci Code. Well, here is a real-life mystery involving the world-famous artist [Leonardo] Da Vinci. To understand what it is about, first look at the photo of the fresco below. Who painted it and when was it painted? Where is it? Why could what is written on it be significant? Who was the person who renovated the place where the fresco is located? Finally, what is the mystery about and who is trying to solve it? mystery something that is difficult to understand or explain fresco a picture that is painted on a wall while the plaster is still wet renovated repaired so that it is in good condition again

OUR STORY FROM THE BANGKOK POST

Hunt for lost Da Vinci to resume in Florence Rome - A real-life Da Vinci mystery, complete with tantalising clues and cunning art sleuths, may be one step closer to a solution, as researchers resume the search for a lost Leonardo masterpiece believed to be concealed behind a wall in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio. Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli and officials in the Tuscan city announced last week they had given their go-ahead for renewed exploration in the palace, which houses Florence's city offices. There, researchers believe, a cavity in one of the walls may have preserved for more than four centuries Leonardo's unfinished mural painting of the ''Battle of Anghiari''. ''We took this decision to verify conclusively if the cavity exists and if there are traces of the fresco,'' Mr Rutelli said during a visit in Florence. The search for the Renaissance masterpiece began about 30 years ago, when art researcher Maurizio Seracini noticed a cryptic message painted on one of the frescoes decorating the ''Hall of the 500'', once the city's seat of power. ''Cerca, trova'' (Seek and you shall find.), said the words on a tiny green flag in the ''Battle of Marciano in the Chiana Valley'', one of the military scenes painted by 16th-century artist Giorgio Vasari. Between 2002 and 2003, radar and X-ray scans allowed Mr Seracini and his team to find a cavity behind the fresco that is the right size to cocoon Leonardo's work, which was long thought to have been destroyed when Vasari renovated the hall in the mid-16th century. But shortly after the initial discovery, Mr Seracini's decades-long quest came to a standstill when authorities refused to renew his survey permit. ''We are not talking about a search like any other,'' Mr Seracini said in a telephone interview. ''We are searching for Leonardo's greatest masterpiece, considered as such also by his contemporaries.'' Leonardo began working on the ''Battle of Anghiari'' in 1505, when he was 53. He worked alongside fellow artist and rival Michelangelo, who had been commissioned to decorate the opposite wall of the council hall with scenes of the Florentine republic's military triumphs. Mr Seracini, whose research on another Leonardo painting is quoted in Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, is an engineer who has spent the last three decades conducting scientific investigations on priceless art treasures. AP resume to continue tantalising causing a person or animal to want something that they cannot have or do clues an object, a piece of evidence or some information that helps you discover the answer to a problem or that helps police solve a crime cunning clever and skilful sleuths people who investigate crimes or mysteries masterpiece a work of art that is an excellent or the best example of the artist's work concealed hidden cavity a hole or empty space inside something solid century a period of 100 years mural a painting, usually a large one, done on a wall verify to check or show that something is true or accurate conclusively with certainty; proving something and allowing no doubt or confusion traces marks, objects or signs that show that something existed or was present cryptic with a meaning that is hidden or not well understood scans images of an object in a computer made by passing X-rays, ultrasound or electromagnetic waves over it cocoon to protect something by surrounding it completely with something initial first; at the beginning quest a long search for something or a long, difficult attempt to get something permit an official document that gives someone the right to do something contemporaries people who live or lived at the same time rival competitor commissioned officially asked to do a job republic a country that is governed by elected officials and which has no king or queen triumphs victories Read our other instant lesson here. Return to our home page. | ? The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. All rights reserved 2006 | Last modified: January 25, 2007