Unravelling the Da Vinci mystery
Saturday - January 13, 2007
Associated Press
FLORENCE, ROME, Jan. 13. — 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.
Italian culture minister Mr Francesco Rutelli and officials in the Tuscan city announced this week they had given their go-ahead for renewed exploration in the palace, which houses Florence’s city offices.
There, some 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 Mr 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 sixteenth 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-sixteenth century.

Knitta Please
Tuesday - January 9, 2007
Check these gals out. They call themselves "Knitta." They're a guerrilla knitter tag team. They go around the inner city knitting cozies and sweaters around car antennas, poles, bottles, doorknobs among other things! Its a very clever idea. Similar to spray paint graffiti but more considerate! I want to see them knit socks on a passed-out bum...

Knitting a utility pole, a door handle, and a brick on the Great Wall with a knitted cozy.
http://www.knittaplease.com

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