Da Vinci art put in cave in WWII

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Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci on show at the National Library of Wales were previously stored there during World War II, researchers have found.

Among the other masterpieces stored in the library's secret cave were the Saxon Chronicles, the works of Wycliffe and Chaucer and a large collection of charters including the Magna Carta.

There was also a wealth of autographs and letters from the kings and queens of England, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Francis Bacon, Oliver Cromwell, the Trafalgar Memorandum of Nelson and Robert Scott's Antarctic journals.

Other treasures included autographs and holographs of William Shakespeare, and paintings by JMW Turner and Michelangelo.

Delwyn Tibbot, whose father Gildas Tibbot was deputy librarian during the war years, said: "Every night my father, a policeman and a member of the British museum staff, would go down to the tunnel to ensure that everything was as it should be."

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