The treasures never found: from the riches of the Tsars to the never found painting of Leonardo da Vinci, here is what we are still looking for
When a news is without sources, it is probably an invention. However, when sources exist and there is no material evidence of the news, then the main solution is research.
There are searches that resemble a real treasure hunt, like those that for centuries have been on the trail of treasures never found, from the poems of the poetess Sappho to the biblical Ark of the Covenant, passing through the lost riches of the Tsars and the never found masterpieces of Leonardo and Michelangelo.
The Lost Treasures of the Czars
Many of history’s never-found treasures were taken from history by destructive events, such as wars and natural disasters. The great riches of the Tsars of Russia that have never been found have, in all likelihood, been destroyed by fires and riots within palaces.
This is the case with the famous Amber Chamber created for Charlottenburg Castle, the residence of the Tsars in Berlin. The Amber Room has often been called “the eighth wonder of the world”: created between 1701 and 1709, the room had walls completely covered with amber, gold leaf and mirrors.
The Amber Room, so dear to Catherine II, disappeared at the end of World War II: after the war, only small fragments of the work of art were found, scattered among private collectors all over the world.
Hopes of finding other parts of the Amber Room have always been dim, which is why in 1979 it was decided to reconstruct the imperial room based on descriptions of existing documentation.
The lost treasure of the Tsars par excellence, however, is the Lost Library of Ivan the Terrible, still the focus of research by many archaeologists and scholars. There are doubts about the real existence of this immense collection of books, which would contain some lost masterpieces of Cicero and Virgil, disappeared inexplicably just after the death of the Tsar in 1584.
The archaeologist Aleksandr Veksler, among others, is convinced that “if over the centuries rivers of ink have been written about the existence of this library”, then it is obvious that it exists, and should be discovered.
The lost masterpieces of Leonardo and Michelangelo
Among the riches swallowed up by the march of historical events, there are some works of the most important artists of the sixteenth century. The most shining example is in the lost mural of The Battle of Anghiari, created between 1503 and 1504 by Leonardo da Vinci for the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
Leonardo’s studies on color conservation techniques were not yet able to guarantee the preservation of the giant mural, which was in fact “fixed” only sixty years later by Giorgio Vasari.
Some believe that Vasari covered what was left of Da Vinci’s Battaglia di Anghiari, while others are inclined to believe that it was the same wall on which Leonardo painted the scene that was covered. The thought that a work of such importance could be hidden from view yet be so close to the observer never ceases to fascinate scholars.
The mystery deepens when it is noticed that in Vasari’s fresco in the same hall there is a small writing, in white: “cerca trova” (look for it).
The search for Leonardo’s masterpiece is far from being finished, as it is still without trace the investigation to find the painting Leda and the swan, realized by Michelangelo Buonarroti around 1530 for Alfonso I d’Este.
After the delivery of the painting to the undeserving envoy of the client, Michelangelo gave the work to Antonio Mini, who took it to France. Nothing more is known about the painting since 1740: among the hypotheses in play, there is the possibility that a minister of Louis XII had it burned as immoral.