DNA tests comparing a lock of hair and a skeleton which is supposed to be that of Leonardo da Vinci will confirm if the remains found interred in France's Saint-Hubert Chapel actually belong to the famous Renaissance artist.

"We are planning to carry out DNA analysis on the relic and compare it to Leonardo’s living descendants as well as to bones found in da Vinci burials that we have identified over the past years," historians Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabata said in a statement.

"This lock of hair, which has remained a secret up until now in an American collection, will be exhibited in a world first along with the documents which attest to its ancient French origins," Vezzosi noted.

"This relic is what we needed to make our historical research even more solid from a scientific point of view," the researchers also told The Guardian newspaper.