Da Vinci's manuscript discovered in pile of documents after 130 years

City officials in the western French town of Nantes on Monday unveiled a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci that had lain undiscovered in a pile of documents for more than 130 years.

Little more than a fragment of paper with brown scrawls, the piece was proudly presented to the media. It was among some 5,000 documents that were left to the city in 1872 by Pierre-Antoine Labouchere, a rich collector of the time, WFMY News 2 reports.

The scrawl on the scrap of paper has been written back to front and experts say it is best read via a mirror - that is if they can crack da Vinci's code.

Agnes Marceteau, from Nantes Library said, "He was most probably writing in Italian from the 15th century and possibly in other languages. So it's now got to be deciphered."

Two years ago an original score by composer genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was also discovered among other possessions belonging to the same collector, Pierre-Antoine Labouchere, euronews reports.