Da Vinci self-portrait discovered by TV journalist

The newly discovered drawing was compared with an authentic portrait of da Vinci, seen here, created around 1512.

A journalist with an Italian television science program says he has uncovered a new self-portrait sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. Piero Angela said Friday that the drawing was hiding under layers of writing on the 10th page of the Codex on the Flight of Birds. Angela wrote on the website of public broadcaster RAI that he could discern a nose barely visible from under heavy scribbling on the page while examining a high quality copy of the Codex. A technician in RAI s graphics lab worked months to isolate the image which revealed a drawing of a young man with long hair and a short beard posed as if lost in thought. The journalist said he noted similarities in the drawing to a self-portrait of an older Leonardo from around 1512. That portrait is housed in Turin s Biblioteca Reale. Angela said he consulted with two facial surgeons in Rome to compare the two illustrations. The surgeons came to the same conclusions. Angela also went to Italian police to use their criminal investigation techniques to digitally "age" the newly found drawing and correlate it with the authentic self-portrait of the old da Vinci. Professor Carlo Pedretti a respected authority on da Vinci who worked on the project said he was "perfectly convinced" that the image was authentic. The findings will be chronicled Saturday night on the TV show Ulisse.

via Da Vinci self-portrait discovered by TV journalist.