YouTube: After five centuries, some experts believe the face of Leonardo da Vinci as a young man has been found.
Is this the face of the young Leonardo da Vinci?

The sketch was discovered when an Italian science reporter spotted a nose drawn amidst da Vinci's writing in a codex on the flight of birds.

He enlisted the help of art historians and police forensic experts to find out exactly what he was looking at.

They together revealed the secrets of the full sketch brought to light for the first time in five centuries.

It bore a distinct likeness to self portraits by the da Vinci when he was old.

Criminal investigation techniques were used to digitally age the new portrait and it was found to be identical to the familiar old da Vinci.

The science reporter, Piero Angela explained his findings at a news conference in Rome.

[Piero Angela, Science Reporter]:
"It is a very important contribution that allows us to rethink what was Leonardo's image as a young man. What we see there is not the old, bearded man with long and white hair that we are used to. He's a handsome man, he looks like a film actor that will certainly enter Leonardo's iconography from now on."

Leonardo experts described the sketch as "one of the most important acquisitions in the study of Leonardo, in the study of his image, and in the study of his thought, too."