• Italian police have recovered a 500-year-old copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th century “Salvator Mundi” painting of Jesus Christ that was stolen from a Naples church during the pandemic without the priests even realising it was gone.

Salvator Mundi

• Salvator Mundi is a painting by the Italian renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci.
• The painting depicts Jesus in Renaissance dress making the sign of cross with his right hand. Also, he holds a transparent crystal orb in his left hand in the painting.
• The painting represents “Celestial Sphere” of the heavens.
• There are twenty other variations of the same work by the students of Leonardo da Vinci. However, the original painting was created by the legend himself.
• The Salvator Mundi is one of the few of the twenty-known works of Leonardo.
• Salvator Mundi is the most expensive painting in the world.
• The painting was sold at 450 million USD in 2017. It was sold to Saudi Prince Badr bin Abdullah. He is the current Minister of Culture of Saudi Arabia. Since then, the painting holds the place of the most expensive painting of the world till date.
• Scholars believe that the Salvator Mundi might have been painted for Louis XII of France. It might have been presented to him after the Second Italian War. Louis fought the war to claims on the thrones of Naples and Milan.

Leonardo da Vinci

• Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath.
• Polymath is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects. He knows to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve a particular problem.
• He is considered as one of the most diversely talented individuals during his era. He became known for his notebooks where he made notes on his scientific inventions.
• His inventions involved variety of subjects such as botany, astronomy, anatomy, painting, cartography and palaeontology.
• Some of the popular works of Leonardo were Annunciation, Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Lady with an Ermine.