The lost Leonardo

‘The Battle of Anghiari’ once adorned a wall inside the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence; why does the art establishment continue to deny it?

‘The Battle of Anghiari’ (1603), a copy by Peter Paul Rubens. Leonardo’s original was painted c. 1505.

On Friday 6 June 1505, Leonardo da Vinci was in the Sala Grande (Great Hall) of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, poised to begin his masterpiece ‘The Battle of Anghiari’. It was to depict the famous clash between the armies of the Republic of Florence a…