Restorers working on renovations for the Sforza Castle in Italy got quite a shock this week when they peeled away several coats of paint to reveal part of a Leonardo Da Vinci mural.

Buried beneath 17 layers of whitewash, the portion of the drawing -- which depicts a tree root stuck in a rock -- has likely been hidden from view for at least 500 years. As La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno reports, the newly uncovered drawing is actually part of a larger body of artwork painted by da Vinci while he served as the court artist for the duke of Milan in the late 1400s. The recent discovery was made in a room where an original da Vinci mural is already visible on the walls....