Leonardo Da Vinci May Have Something More To Say

Fragment of Manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci Unearthed in French Town Library

Agnes Marcetteau (L), director of Nantes media library, and Jean-Marc Ayrault, Mayor of Nantes, present to the media "an autograph" attributed to Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor Leonardo da Vinci. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe.

NANTES (REUTERS).- A long-lost fragment of manuscript by Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci has been uncovered in a public library in western France after lying forgotten in storage for nearly one and a half centuries. The text, written from right to left in Da Vinci's trademark mirror-writing, was among 5,000 documents donated to the city of Nantes in 1872 by wealthy collector Pierre-Antoine Labouchere, and then left to languish in local archives. It was only when a local journalist came across a reference to the document's location in a biography of the Italian master that the manuscript was finally tracked down. "He was most probably writing in 15th-century Italian, and possibly in other languages, so it's now got to be deciphered," said Agnes Marcetteau, head of the Nantes library where the manuscript was found. For the time