David Yoder is not an art historian. Nor is he a physicist. “In
fact,” Mr. Yoder said, “I’m positive I would have failed any
physics course.” Mr. Yoder is a freelance photographer. But an
article in Saturday’s Arts section chronicles the unusual
marriage of art history and nuclear physics with which he is
involved. Mr. Yoder’s project, which is on Kickstarter, came
from a decades-long, much publicized search for “The Battle of
Anghiari,” the lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci thought to
be hidden behind a wall-sized Vasari fresco in Florence’s
Palazzo Vecchio. Mr. Yoder wants to photograph the long-lost
painting. His first task, however, is raising funds for the
project, which is supported but not entirely funded by the
National Geographic Society. The goal — a whopping $266,500 —
sounds high, and it is. (Mr. Yoder called it “ambitious.”) The
money will go toward imaging the painting, a complicated process
that involves building and testing a gamma camera. As the story
goes, Leonardo began working on the p