Secret Scouts and The Lost Leonardo

by Mr.

  “I told you he had a special relationship with animals. That bird you just saw, the eagle, it required enormous patience on Giovan’s part to teach it just a few words!”

  Sophie looked at him with her mouth agape.

  “Somewhere in the house he also has a room full of snakes.”

  Shivers ran up and down her spine. “Please don’t tell Lisa that.”

  “A bit chilly!” said Sophie, as she wrapped her arms around herself. She had had a wonderful evening, but still she didn’t appreciate the cold outside on the street. It was already late and she was missing her usual mug of hot tea and her soft bed.

  “Did you enjoy it? Your pasta was a huge success!”

  Leonardo kept a steady pace as they walked through the narrow streets, which were growing darker by the minute. “It’s good that we left when we did, it’s almost midnight, and that’s not the best time to be out on the streets.”

  “That was so awesome!” said Lisa. “When I went to the bathroom I even found a room full of snakes!”

  Sophie froze at the idea that her sister had discovered the snakes. Lisa saw the astonished look on her sister’s face and quickly calmed her down. “No, I didn’t do anything to them, and no I didn’t steal one… I just thought I’d mention it.”

  When they reached the deserted Palazzo Vecchio they followed Leonardo up the stairs to the Hall of the Five Hundred. He turned around and looked seriously at his young friends.

  “We met each other for the first time thirty years ago. For me…” he paused briefly and then took a few deep breaths. “For me, our meeting has been the most important event in my life.” He thought deeply and nodded a few times. “I am so very grateful for having met you. Because of you… everything changed. I’ve learned so much, I’ve experienced so many things, all because of you. And I’m very grateful for that!” He stretched out his arm and pointed up to the hall. “This artwork is an homage to our friendship. An homage to you!”

  Not knowing what to make of Leonardo’s words or what to expect, they entered the hall full of curiosity. The Hall of the Five Hundred was an enormous room approximately one hundred and fifty feet long and sixty feet wide. The fire baskets the assistants had hung up provided just enough light to be able to see everything. The ceiling was covered in huge paintings framed by beautifully decorated wood engravings. They could see that there were windows on the shorter side of the hall, but no light shone inside because it was dark outside.

  One of the long walls was completely bare. Leonardo was right when he said Michelangelo hadn’t progressed much beyond doing a few sketches.

  What they saw on the other wall, however, stopped them in their tracks. The painting covered a large section of the wall and extended up way above their heads. Their gaze moved slowly from left to right and from top to bottom. Jack and Tom took a step back, stopping only when they bumped into the wall on the opposite side of the room. They stared silently at the imposing image on the wall with wide eyes and open mouths.

  Sophie and Lisa stood next to Leonardo in the middle of the hall. What they saw took their breath away. Sophie tried to take it all in. Lisa bit her bottom lip as she scrutinized the figures on the wall. The longer she looked the more excited she became.

  “Oh my God, this is soooooooo cool!” she shouted. Never before in her life had Lisa had been so unguarded in showing her emotions. “Wow, unbelievable!” She covered her mouth with her hand as she continued to stare at the painting. She ran across the hall, threw her arms in the air, and jumped up onto Tom’s back.

  Lisa’s enthusiasm infected the boys as well. They both joined her in jumping jubilantly around the hall.

  Sophie remained standing next to Leonardo, her fists clenched. What she was looking at couldn’t be real. The Lost Leonardo. Who would ever have imagined that this was what was really hidden behind the double wall?

  Here you see professor Maurizio Seracini and his team of experts working in The Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s town hall, in 2012. This is where they found traces of The Lost Leonardo hidden behind a double wall.

  A million thoughts ran through her head. What were the implications? What would her father think? What would the world think once the truth came to light? What would the consequences be if everyone knew The Lost Leonardo actually existed? What would happen to them if the whole world learned what had been painted on the wall? Who had been painted on the wall?

  Leonardo looked at her in tense anticipation. “And?”

  Sophie’s mouth fell open. “And?” she reacted. “And? Leonardo! Leonardo, have you any idea what...?” She shook her head.

  “This… this…” she couldn’t finish her sentence because Lisa had jumped onto her back.

  “Do you know who that is?” Lisa shouted as if Sophie hadn’t quite figured out who was in the painting.

  “Anghiari!” Leonardo beamed. “You remember, right?”

  Tuesday, June 24th, evening

  “Anghiari?” Tom yelled. “That’s us!” He jumped into the air with delight and gave Lisa an enthusiastic high five. The sharp slap resonated throughout the room. “Look! Look at that!” He couldn’t stop bouncing around, saying the same thing over and over again: “That’s us! That’s us!”

  Jack had stopped jumping around and was now standing dumbstruck next to Sophie. They could hear Tom and Lisa still screaming behind them. The painting was of them, the four of them, there was no doubt about it.

  “Do you still remember? Thirty years ago?” Leonardo asked. “When you wanted to go outside I needed to come up with an excuse, just in case someone asked you where you were from? Do you still remember that?”

  Jack and Sophie nodded affirmatively. For them it had literally happened yesterday. “Anghiari,” Sophie said, louder and louder, with Jack repeating it in the same rhythm.

  “The Battle of Anghiari! People have written about that, too.” She looked excitedly at Leonardo. “That’s what the history books call it! They claim that there’s a painting of the battle of Anghiari on this wall and that you painted it!”

  Leonardo corrected her story. “Then they almost got it right. It’s not the battle of Anghiari, but the battle with the people from Anghari!”

  “That’s right,” Sophie said. “You were going to say that you came across us just outside the city. That we were riding horses and were attacked by thieves. You had come to our rescue. The story was that we were from Anghiari and just passing through.”

  “That’s exactly it, Sophie!” Leonardo clapped his hands enthusiastically. “Look!”

  On the wall above them were four people riding horseback and fighting with a band of thieves. Exactly the story Leonardo had come up with at the time.

  “After you left, a lot of people came by asking questions, people who had seen you. People who had seen you, Jack!”

  Jack puffed out his chest with pride and thought again about scoring the winning point.

  “I ended up telling them that story. I said I met you outside the city just as you were being attacked. I told them you were fearless and that the thieves ran off with their tails between their legs. They believed the story, it matched perfectly with the expectations they had of the unknown calcio hero who scored the winning point.” Leonardo had to laugh when he said this. “Lots of people thought it was a great story.” He pointed to the painting on the wall. “It’s all there on the wall. You are all sitting on horses and fighting the thieves, who are being trampled by the horses, too.”

  “It looks so real!” said Sophie. “We look so real!”

  “I can paint a little bit,” Leonardo said with a smile.

  Jack and Tom were painted at the top, sitting on horses and wielding long knives in their hands. Sophie was painted in the middle. She was expertly riding what looked like a wild horse. On the left side of the painting Lisa sat almost backwards on one of the horses. A thief lay on the ground under the horse’s hooves. Another thief was crouched down and shielding himself from being trampled. Leonardo had captu
red the horses’ physiology in perfect detail, as well as their passionate spirit. Tom, Jack, Sophie, and Lisa were painted so well that it was like they were looking at a photograph. The painting was an unprecedented masterpiece.

  “So, how do you like it?” asked Leonardo.

  “It’s awesome, just... wow,” said Sophie.

  Jack nodded in agreement.

  Sophie wondered whether she should tell Leonardo what would eventually happen to the painting. During rebuilding work fifty years from now they would erect a second wall that would hide the painting forever. This painting would be remembered as The Lost Leonardo. If she told Leonardo this now, he might be able to prevent it from happening.

  She looked around in desperation until she locked eyes with her sister. Lisa was shaking her head – No.

  “Come here,” Lisa whispered to her sister, pulling her closer. “Sophie, you can’t say anything…”

  Sophie frowned and looked at her sister.

  “I know you, you’re all about the facts, the truth, but trust me, just let it go,” Lisa said, trying to convince her sister. “If we tell him everything, we don’t know what will happen, how that will affect the future? So don’t, okay?”

  Sophie nodded. “You’re probably right.”

  Lisa laughed. “Always!” she said, emphasizing her point with an exaggerated wink. “And remember, they eventually end up finding traces of it behind the wall. I promise you that in a few years the truth will be revealed. The world will discover, all on its own, exactly what’s painted there.”

  “And then what?” Sophie sounded shocked.

  “Uhm, then we’ll be world famous,” said Lisa, “but that also means we can forget about traveling through time ever again. And that’s why we should make good use of it while we can. It’s our secret, ours and Jack’s and Tom’s, how cool is that?”

  Sophie could find no reason to disagree. It was indeed very cool.

  “But Sophie, don’t you remember the real reason we came here?” Lisa said, suddenly giving their conversation a lighter twist.

  “My phone!” Sophie immediately shouted.

  “Uhm, yes…” Leonardo mumbled, “that’s a long story.”

  He looked around as if hoping a simple explanation would magically appear on one of the walls. “So the thing is… I no longer have it.”

  “What do you mean you no longer have it?” Sophie stuttered. “Seriously?”

  “She always says that,” Lisa said.

  Sophie gave her sister an irritated look. “Seriously, my bag should be lying around here somewhere, with my pills, my book, the charger, the printer and, most importantly, my phone. How could you lose it? You’re supposed to be the clever one, right?” said Sophie with a mix of sarcasm and annoyance.

  Leonardo paced back and forth across the hall as he talked, looking around for something soft to sit on. “Let me start by giving you something.” He took a large, shiny, round tin out of his pocket. “Here.”

  Sophie took the tin and immediately removed the lid. She looked at Leonardo, dumbstruck by what she saw inside.

  “A portable orrery,” he said. “Much more practical.”

  Tom reached over and grabbed the tin from her hands. Together with his brother he carefully removed the planetarium and set it down on the ground. Jack carefully unfolded all the rods, turning the instrument into something that looked like a real planetarium, but smaller.

  “Because it no longer sits in a wooden chest, you have to write the destination and year on the bottom. This here is where you place the bottled water from the Seven Seas and that’s where you put the phone. It’s important that you hold these metal wires. That way you remain connected to the portable planetarium and it can travel with you through time. I’ve tested the wire and it’s strong enough. Everything else works the same.”

  Leonardo proudly examined his own design. “The other one was too big. You can take this one with you everywhere you go.” He winked at Lisa. “My guess is you’re not done traveling through time just yet! By the way, the other one, the big one…” He looked a little embarrassed. “It’s gone, someone took it, so I actually had to make a new one.”

  “Took it?” Lisa was the only one to react to his comment. She stared at Leonardo and wondered if her intuition was right. Had someone beaten them to the punch? Had someone else found about time travel, too? Leonardo seemed to be able to read her mind and nodded, holding a finger to his lips.

  “About ten years after you all showed up,” Leonardo whispered, looking around to make sure only Lisa could hear him, “I was working on a painting of a young woman with an ermine. It made me think of you. I was focused on my work when suddenly I realized there was someone watching me. I had no idea how long he had been standing there, but before I could say anything he had vanished.

  This paining by Leonardo da Vinci is called Lady with an Ermine and was painted around 1489.

  “An ermine?” Lisa said.

  “Yes,” Leonardo nodded. “The stranger took the orrery, and the ermine disappeared as well. I have thought about it for years, but the reason for the visit still baffles me.”

  “An ermine?” Lisa repeated softly. Now she was certain. Someone had indeed beaten them to it and she had a strong suspicion who.

  “The little orrery is just awesome,” said Sophie, who had nearly forgotten that both her backpack and phone were gone.

  Leonardo’s surprise gift had lifted the mood. He sat down on a pile of clothes he had gathered together and told them what had happened to Sophie’s telephone and backpack.

  “Thirty years ago, in the studio. You were already gone. Suddenly I found your backpack and all the stuff inside.”

  “Suddenly?” Sophie glanced at her sister but Lisa ignored her remark and indicated to Leonardo that he should continue his story.

  “I found the backpack and was burning with curiosity. I wanted to know everything, but initially I… initially I didn’t dare touch anything. I was afraid someone would find out and I didn’t know what the consequences might be.” To emphasize his anguish Leonardo gestured to the heavens in desperation.

  “I hid the backpack in a really safe place in the studio, but I never found the time to carefully examine everything. There was a constant stream of visitors stopping by with commissions and requests for paintings. Every time someone knocked on the door I had to frantically hide everything. It made me nervous. One day they even put me in jail...”

  Sophie looked at him horrified. “Seriously?”

  Leonardo nodded his head somberly. “Maybe I was acting a bit strange at the time. I was losing my mind. I had a lot of secret activities going on – digging up bodies, examining your things – I think they locked me up because I was acting so odd.” He laughed quietly to himself. “I came really close to losing it. When they finally let me out of jail a few months later I packed up all my stuff up and left Florence. I went looking for a place where I could examine your things in peace.”

  “Did you take the planetarium with you?” Sophie felt her entire body go tense as she waited for his answer.

  Leonardo grinned from ear to ear. “Of course I did, Sophie! And to answer your next question, I succeeded in using it. I traveled with the orrery myself. I met a man, a genius, and he… he was so happy to see me. And Sophie, your telephone!” Leonardo shook his head in disbelief. “He was so excited about it, that thing is miraculous!”

  “What do you mean!” Sophie asked surprised.

  “Where did you go? What did you do?” asked Lisa, every bit as curious as Sophie.

  “Okay, as I was saying,” Leonardo continued, “I left Florence to go east, towards the coast. I had heard stories about an island that no one ever visited anymore.” Leonardo breathed in deeply through his nose and let the air escape slowly through his mouth. “Poveglia. That’s the name of the island: Poveglia.”

  They all stared at him, breathless. Sophie shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it,” she said. “Did you find it? Did you g
o there? What’s it like?”

  Leonardo raised his arms in the air to calm Sophie down. “Whoa! Please, one question at a time. It definitely wasn’t easy traveling to Poveglia because no boats went there. In the end I had to build my own boat and sail there myself.”

  “Why didn’t any boats go there? An island off the coast is always worth visiting, isn’t it?” Sophie shot him a questioning look.

  “Well, Sophie,” said Leonardo, while shaking his head, “it’s not a very inviting island. Which is why it was the perfect location for me to go about my business without interruption.”

  Jack and Tom sensed the tension in Leonardo’s voice.

  “Why doesn’t anyone want to go to that island?” Tom asked intrigued.

  “Because it’s haunted!” said Leonardo in a deliberately deep voice to make sure he had their full attention.

  “Haunted?” Lisa immediately sat up.

  “I had heard about Poveglia before,” Leonardo said. “The story goes that a long time ago thousands, if not tens of thousands of people were brought there…” He paused for a moment. You could feel the tension in the air.

  “People suffering from the plague, people on their deathbeds. The entire island is one big mass grave for plague victims.”

  “What?” Sophie sounded like she’d been stung by a wasp. “What kind of horrible island is that? And what were you doing there?”

  “Legend has it that the island was used as a sort of dumping ground for people suffering from the plague, to keep them from contaminating others. That’s one way to stop the plague from spreading, I suppose. In those days if you got sick they simply dumped you on Poveglia… to die.”

  Sophie felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. “Oh, what a terrible place. I would never, ever go there!”

  “I’d go,” Jack said undaunted.

  “How do you know all this is true?” Sophie asked Leonardo. “You said it was just a legend and that it happened a long time ago. Maybe somebody just made the story up.”