But what if the plan had validity?

As reported in The New York Times (“Methods for Finding a Lost Fresco by Leonardo Lead to a Protest”, by Elisabetta Povoledo, Decmeber 7, 2011), three hundred scholars haave signed a petititon asking the Mayor of Florence to put a stop to a project led by the National Geographic Society and the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (UC-San Diego) to locate Leonardo da Vinci’s lost “Battle of Anghiari” behind a fresco by Giorgio Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio. As of this time, six holes just large enough to permit the entry of a four millimeter endoscopic proble have been drilled in previously damaged areas of Vasari’s fresco (no original paint has been removed). Many of the petitioners feel that the project has little validity. But what if it had? How important must the potential results of an investigation be for it to be acceptible to disturb or damage an existing work of art?