The man who uncovered the true colours of the Mona Lisa and discovered a lost Leonardo Da Vinci portrait is in Manchester today to launch the UK premiere of his work in a new exhibition on Leonardo Da Vinci at the Museum of Science & Industry. 

Da Vinci – The Genius, opens at MOSI on 14 November 2009. The display was created by the Anthropos Foundation of Italy and Grande Exhibitions and Pascal Cotte from France. It is the most comprehensive travelling exhibition ever created on Leonardo Da Vinci. 

Cotte is an engineer and examiner of fine art who invented the world’s most powerful camera - a 240-megapixel Multi-spectral Imaging Camera. The camera uses infra-red and intense illumination to see deep underneath the Mona Lisa’s layers of restoration and capture the true colours of the original 1509 painting. His amazing revelations are displayed in giant high-resolution prints, including a 4 x 3m giant infra-red of Mona Lisa and a 360 degree walk around replica of the Mona Lisa. Cotte’s photograph of the painting La Bella Principessa, which he recently demonstrated to be a lost Da Vinci portrait, is also on display alongside 65 hand-crafted, full-scale machines.

Steve Davies MBE is director of MOSI...

Bruce Peterson is the exhibition creator and owner...

The exhibition covers an area of 1000 square metres and includes hand-crafted large-scale objects like Da Vinci’s glider and parachute, the precursor to the modern helicopter, the bicycle, the forerunner to the modern military tank, as well as an automobile, submarine, ball bearing and gear systems. Italian artisans have worked with Da Vinci’s designs, as well as his unusual shorthand (written from right to left) and Florentine dialect, to bring his work to life for the first time in the techniques and materials of 15th century Italy.  

John Pickford