Who Knows Best

This week he Prado Museum in Madrid announced that after closer analysis, a painted copy of the Mona Lisa in their collection is much older than previously thought, and was painted at the same time as the original. It was most likely painted by a student of Leonardo da Vinci, or who knows, it could also have been painted by the Master himself.

If you're a Doctor Who fan, this will all sound very familiar to you. In the 1979 episode City of Death, an alien called Scaroth pays a visit to Leonardo in his studio. He convinces him to paint an additional FIVE copies of the Mona Lisa. Scaroth then stores the copies in the cellar of a mansion, where 500 years later he will sell them to unscrupulous art collectors for fabulous sums of money in order to fund his time travel experiments and restore his race.

Once again, Doctor Who got it right!