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