It is not often that we receive something in the post that leaves us mildly baffled, but this morning was one of those times.

A postcard arrived with a picture of Venice on the front. The rear of the postcard contains none of the usual ‘wish you were here’ drivel that most postcards around the world carry; in fact it carries no text at all. The postmark is clearly from Central Milan, not Venice.

Then we started to notice something recognisable within the picture that gave the game away…

In the top right corner of the picture, there is a window that looks remarkably like the mark of the Assassin. That was the first indication that this is indeed a video game related marketing effort and not a thinly veiled warning from ‘La Familia’.

In addition to the window, you’ll see a sign bearing the inscription ‘Buon Compleanno Da Vinci’. The Italian speakers amongst the team at Attitude Towers will tell you that means ‘Happy Birthday Da Vinci’. There is no mystery here – today is Da Vinci’s 557th birthday. Someone better have a fire extinguisher handy for the cake…

Check out the images below. Our card is clearly a little damaged and feeling worse for wear, but we’ve compared it with others that are being reported across gaming sites and our blemishes hide nothing of importance.

We’ll be subjecting the card to our best ‘Spy vs. Spy’ methods soon to see if it holds any more secrets, and we’ll update this story as and when we find anything.

Let’s just hope that Ubisoft didn’t rely on Dan Brown’s book of nonsense as their inspiration for the link between Da Vinci and the Knights Templar, or this particular member of the PS3 Attitude team is going to be growling and throwing masonry at the TV in protest when AC2 hits the streets.