unknown person and confirmation was given when investigations revealed the paint itself to be different to the paint used for the rest of the picture The original painting shows a dark background with Leonardo s face highlighted in the centre of the composition but the bright splash of a contrasting white feather at top left reduces the impact of his face and radically changes his intended motive Leonardo would be insulted if graffiti was exhibited as his work and taking all this into account the painting is presented here with the feather removed to help appreciation of the work Appreciation of the painting involves understanding a technique used to make it seem more life like So far as we know this technique is a Leonardo invention to make the viewer feel kissed and has not been used anywhere else before or since Leonardo specialised in communicating with a person s subconscious so he would feel moved without knowing why and in this case he has added a second ghostly face at a slightly smaller scale directly below the primary face but this ghost is facing the opposite way and invisible when viewed from the front in the ordinary way If the painting is viewed from a narrow angle both mages are condensed along their horizontal axis so that it seems there is the beginning of two faces looking in different directions but as the angle increases the bottom face quickly dissolves while the top face resolves into the proper image giving the impression of movement and life to an image with evocative lips pursed to suggest the invitation of a kiss To cause the painting to be viewed at a narrow angle without disclosing any reason Leonardo has written a piece of mysterious script his signature on the back of the panel where the viewer would be likely to look more than once to resolve the riddle The script PINXIT MEA is written in Leonardo s right to left writing and its ironic meaning is unsettled as yet because complicated issues of gender are raised It suggests a woman saying my picture a mood setting riddle perhaps In this way Leonardo has made his self portrait seem alive because it moves the viewer to interact by turning the painting to examine the signature on its back which as it returns to position leaves a subconscious impression that Leonardo is kissing the beholder Given the mutilating marks across the blue eyes we can speculate that someone was maddened by the recurring tension of the kiss juxtaposed with his cool gaze every time the signature was checked and that this feeling has provoked them into attacking something they didn t understand RESULTS OF TESTS In 2009 the study of the newly discovered painting was assigned to a team of scholars who carried out an extensive series of investigations aimed at recognition of the dating of the painting and allocation to the hand of Leonardo Team leaders were INNOVA CIRCE University of Naples Cybernetics National Research Council and University Suor Orsola Benincasa Prof Gaetano Di Pasquale of the University of Naples identified the wood body of the painting as Populus present in all Italian regions and Radiocarbon dating tests of three fragments gave a range of 1474 to 1517 Raman analysis by Prof Carlo Camerlingo and Prof Antonio Sasso of the University of Naples was impossible because of a layer of varnish and MMS Magnetic scanning at very high 100 microns resolution was carried out by Dr Hector Sarno of INNOVA to check for illegible letters and to compose a magnetic map of the painting Analysis by X ray fluorescence by Prof Giorgio Trojsi Suor Orsola Benincasa University and Prof John Paternoster of the Department of Physics University of Naples showed that the feather was painted in a titanium based pigment not used in other parts of the painting Forensic graphology specialist Prof Silvana Iuliano of the University of Urbino found that the characters on the door are represented in an alphabet conceived by Leonardo in the Atlantic Codex with the writing and the ink being contemporary to those used and recognized in the writings of Leonardo Prof Felice Festa of the University of Chieti together with collaborators made comparative computer analysis of facial soft tissue on the most famous portraits of Leonardo in order to determine the correct facial features Among the many portraits available only five including Francesco Melzi s chalk drawing believed to be true by the scientific community were taken into account along with the face of the Vitruvian Man The Lucan self portrait and the face found in Codex on the Flight of Birds In total therefore 8 pictures were reviewed with specialist software Dolphin Imagings