The secret lives of paintings Maurizio Seracini

in 1975 I met in Florence at Professor

carlopa directly my former professor

world history and today a world-renowned

scholar

of Leonardo da Vinci well he asked me if

I could find some technological way to

unfold the five centuries old mystery

related to a lost masterpiece but

another da Vinci the battle van Garrett

which is supposed to be located in the

hole the 500 in Palazzo Vecchio in

Florence well in the mid 70s there were

not great opportunities for a

bioengineer like me especially nearly

and so I presided with some researchers

from the United States and the

University of Florence to start probing

the murals decorated by Vasari

on the long wall so they hold a 500

searching for the lost Vermeer though

unfortunately at that time we did not

know that there was not exactly where we

should be looking because we had to go

much deeper in and so the research came

to a halt and it was only taken up in

2000 thanks to the interest and

enthusiasm of the Guinness family well

this time we focus on trying to

reconstruct the way the whole de 500 was

before the remodeling and the so-called

cellar grande which was built in 1494

and to find out the original doors

windows and in order to do that we first

created a 3d model and then with

tomography we went on to discover hidden

windows this of the region windows of

the whole of the Sala Grande we also

found out about the height of the

ceiling and we managed to reconstruct

there for all the layout of this

original Hall the way was before the

campus re and restructure the whole

thing including a staircase that was

very important in order to precisely

place the

McGary on a specific area but one of the

two walls well we also learned that

bizarrely

who was commissioned to remodel the

whole the 500 between 1560 or 1574 by

the Grand Duke a column of the first of

the Medici family we have at least two

instances when he saved masterpieces

specifically by placing a brick wall in

front of it and live in a small air gap

one the Trinity massage the Church of

Santa Maria Novella in Florence so we

just said well maybe it was that he has

done something like that

in the case of that this is a great work

of art by nomads though since he was a

great admirer Leonardo da Vinci so we

built some a very sophisticated radar

antennas just for probing both walls and

searching for an air gap and we did find

mainly on the right panel of the east

wall an air gap and that’s where we

believe the bell of Anghiari or at least

the part that we know has been painted

which is called the fat for the standard

should be located well from there

unfortunately

in 2004 the project came to a halt many

political reasons so I decided to go

back to my alma mater and at University

of California San Diego and I proposed

to open up a Research Center for

engineering Sciences for culture

heritage and in 2011 we create season

three as a research center for culture

heritage specifically art architecture

in archaeology so students started to

flow in and we started to build

technologies because that’s basically

what we also needed in order to move

forward that they go and go and do field

work we came back in the hall the 500 in

2011 and this time with a great group of

students and my colleague professor

Parker Custer who is now the director

choose a three and that we came back

just since we knew already where to look

for to find out if there was still

something left well we were confined

though limited Ashima they say for

several reasons that is not worth

explaining to endoscopy only of the many

other options we had

and with a four millimeter camera

attached to it we were successful in

documenting end up taking some fragments

of what it turns out to be a reddish

color black color and there’s some beige

fragments that later on we run a much

more sophisticated in terms XRF x-ray

diffraction and the results are very

positive so far seems to indicate that

indeed we have found some pigments and

since we know for sure that no other

artist has painted on that well before

Buzzelli came in about six years later

well those pigments are definitely

related to mural painting and most

likely to no matter well we are

searching for the highest and highly

praised the work of art ever achieved by

mankind as a matter of fact this is by

far the most important Commission that

Leonardo has ever had and for doing this

great masterpiece he was named the

number one artist in Florence at that

time I had also had the privilege since

the last 37 years to work on several

masterpieces as you can see behind me

but basically to do what well process

for example state of conservation see

here face of the Madonna of the chair

that one just shining UV light on it you

suddenly see another different lady age

lady I should rather say there is a lot

of varnish still sitting there several

retouches and some over cleaning it

becomes very visible but also technology

has helped to light new pages of our

history or at least to update pages

about histories for example the lady

with unicorn I know the painting by

Raphael well you see the unicorn a lot

has been said and written about the

unicorn but should take an x-ray of the

unicorn it becomes a puppy dog and no

problem but unfortunately continue with

the scientific examination this painting

came out that Raphael did not paint the

unicorn did not painted a puppy dog

actually left the painting

so all this writing about the the exotic

symbol of the unicorn unfortunately it’s

not very reliable well also authenticity

just think for a moment if science

really could move in the field of

authenticity of works of art there would

be a culture of evolution to say the

least but also I would say a market

revolution let me end take this example

bottom our sales nice painting which is

still life at the Pinney gallery and

just have any free camera peering

through and luckily for art historians

it just was confirmed that there is a

signature too mysterious even says when

it was made and also the location so

there was a good result

sometime it’s not that good and so again

authenticity and science could go

together and change the way not

attributions be made by at least lay the

ground for the a more objective or

structures rather say less subjective

attribution as it is done today but I

would say the discovery of that really

caught my imagination my admiration is

very incredibly vivid drawing under this

layer brown layer of the adoration of

the Magi here you see is handmade

setting XYZ scanner with an infrared

camera put on it and just peering

through this brown layer of this

masterpiece to reveal what could have

been underneath well this happens to be

the most important painting we have in

Italy Bologna da da Vinci and look at

the wonderful images of faces that

nobody has seen for five centuries

look these portraits they’re magnificent

you see leo not at work you see the

geniality of his creation right directly

on the ground layer of the panel and see

this cool thing finding I should rather

say an elephant because of this elephant

over 70 new images came out never seen

through centuries this was an epiphany

we

came to understand and to prove that the

brown coating that we see today was not

done by Leonardo da Vinci which left us

only the only drawing the foot five

centuries we were not able to see so

thanks only to technology well

the tablet well we thought well if we

are have this pleasure this privilege to

see all this to find all these

discoveries what about for everybody

else so we thought of a not mental

reality application using a tablet let

me show you just simulating what we

could be doing any any of us could be

doing in a museum environment so let’s

say that we go to a museum with a tablet

okay

and we just aim the camera or the tablet

to the painting that we’re interested to

see like this okay and that we just

click on it with paws and now let me

turn to you so the moment a the image or

I should say the camera is locked in the

painting then the images we just saw of

the other drawing are being loaded and

so see we can as we said we have zoom in

then we can scroll okay let’s go and

find the elephant so all we need is one

finger just wipe off and we see the

elephant

okay and then if we want we can continue

this flow and to find out for example on

the staircase the whole iconography is

going to be changed a lot of laymen

reconstructing from the ruins of an old

temple a new temple and there a lot of

figures showing up you see this is not

just the curiosity because it changes

not just the iconography as you see it

but the a chronology the meaning of the

painting and we believe this is a cool

way easy way that everybody could have

access to to become more the protagonist

of your own discovery and not just be so

passive about it as we are when we walk

through endless rooms of museums another

concept is the clinical chart which

sounds like very obvious if we were to

talk about real patients but when we

talk about works of art unfortunate it’s

never been that as an idea well we

believe again that this should be the

beginning the very first step to do real

conservation and allowing us to really

explore and to understand everything

related to the state of a conservation

the technique materials and also if when

and why we should restore it and or

rather to intervene on on the

environment surrounding the painting

well our vision is to rediscover the

spirit of the Renaissance create a new

discipline where engineering for culture

heritage is actually a symbol of

blending art and science together we

definitely need a new breed of engineers

that will go out and do this kind of

work and and rediscover for us

these values these cultural values that

we badly needed especially today and if

you want to summarize if we want just

single word well this is what we’re

trying to do we try to give a future to

our past in order to have a future as

long as we live a life of curiosity and

passion there is a bit of linearity in

all of us thank you

you