Italian police on Wednesday raided Florence's most famous palace over allegations that a US quest for a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece is damaging a fresco believed to be covering it.
"Police have visited the scene and have closely examined the fresco, as well as speaking to restorers," Marco Agnoletti, a spokesman from Florence's city council, which is based in the same building, the Palazzo Vecchio, told AFP.
The last reference to Da Vinci's unfinished "Battle of Anghiari" was in the 16th century -- but Florence's top art authority believes it is hidden behind a fresco by Giorgio Vasari and has launched a controversial project to find it.
Da Vinci began his work in 1505 and Vasari painted his fresco in 1563.
San Diego University art historian Maurizio Seracini, who was mentioned in Dan Brown's bestseller "The Da Vinci Code", is leading the project.
National Geographic, which has reportedly paid $250,000 (187,000 euros) for exclusivity on any findings from the research, is also taking part.
Researchers bored holes into the Vasari work in the hope that tiny cameras would confirm San Diego art historian Maurizio Seracini's theory that the Renaissance artist's bloody depiction of warfare is hidden underneath.
The technology used in the project was developed by a senior US nuclear physicist, Robert Smither, who came up with a special camera to generate high-resolution images of a cancer's location in the human body.
Seracini is convinced that Vasari covered Da Vinci's work with a brick wall before embarking on his own work -- and even left a tantalising clue with an inscription that reads "Cerca Trova" ("Seek and You Shall Find").
The police investigation was launched after 400 international art world scholars signed a petition complaining that the search was nothing more than a "Dan-Brown style" publicity stunt which risked damaging Vasari's fresco.
The petition refers to Florence mayor Matteo Renzi -- who has championed the effort -- and sarcastically referred to his "fortunate American visit" during which he agreed to the project.
Italian-US art world ties have been tense in recent years over requests for the return of looted masterpieces from US museums to Italy although there have been recent efforts to improve relations.
"It's up to the police now to see whether the project workers have vandalised Vasari's fresco in their rush to discover the Da Vinci," said Maria Grazia Vernuccio, from the national heritage association Italia Nostra.
She said the Italian culture ministry had stepped in on Monday to halt the project as fears spread that the researchers would not stop at boring holes but "suggested they may tear bits of the fresco away as well."
The work by Vasari, an influential painter, writer, historian and architect, is "The Battle of Marciano" depicting Florence's victory over Siena in 1554.
Da Vinci was a Renaissance polymath and the author of what has become the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa. But very few of his works survive and there are frequent costly attempts to find traces of his documented work.
Tomaso Montanari, history professor at the University of Naples, said there was "no way Vasari would have painted over Da Vinci's work. He held him in great esteem, and removed works from walls rather than paint over them."
"This whole thing is more like the search for the Holy Grail than real history. We don't even know if the written clue is from the right period, it's a publicity plot," he said.
Montanari helped circulate the petition asking Florence's mayor, Matteo Renzi -- who has championed the project -- to stop the drilling.
"Renzi realised that Leonardo is a superstar, any work by him becomes an immediate blockbuster. But even if the painting really was there, it would be in ruins. Do you destroy a Vasari to get to the dregs of a Leonardo?" he said.
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