The first pictorial work of the genius of the Renaissance Leonardo Da Vinci was a tile dated in 1471 in which an Archangel Gabriel is represented, announced today the art expert Ernesto Solari, who presented the piece in an act in Rome.
The professor exhibited the piece "for the first time in the world" at the headquarters of the foreign press in Rome and defended its authenticity, which has resulted in a study of 6,000 pages made over three years with different technical, scientific and historical analyzes.
It is a square terracotta tile, owned by the noble Fenice da Ravello family, which was made by a young Leonardo eighteen and a half years old, he explained.
His signature, "Da Vinci lionardo LDV", appears on the face of Arcángel himself, partially mimicked in his jaw.
"This work is one hundred percent of Leonardo, it is the first," said Solari, a renowned expert on the work of the Renaissance genius.
The painting, protected in an urn and by two security agents, is 20 centimeters long and wide and 1.2 centimeters thick and shows the face, bust and upper part of the wings of an archangel Gabriel in profile, crowned with a golden halo.
The expert considered that it is the oldest painting that has arrived until our days of the genius and counts on his first signature, of left to right and covered by the last layer of cooking of the tile, which demonstrates that it was not falsified later.
On the other hand he said that "with a great deal of probability it is a self-portrait of Leonardo, the first one at all", according to the comparison with the sequence of other portraits.
The graphologist Ivana Rosa Bonfantinio explained that for the study of the firm has done the same technique for the courts and stressed that, based on their results, "we can say that it is the first signature made and signed by Leonardo Da Vinci, in 1471 "
Professor Solari said that the value of this tile "is not estimable" because it is the first and he thought that the State should acquire it to show it to the public.
And he pointed out that from now on "the debate is open", so he urged "anyone who has a doubt" about its authenticity to send it to him, although he asked to avoid "free controversies".