Cryptic clue in hunt for real Mona Lisa

Cryptic clue in hunt for real Mona Lisa

Art historians are resorting to grave-digging in a bid to solve the mystery behind the world's most famous painting.

Scientists in Italy plan to exhume the 500-year-old remains of a woman widely believed to be Leonardo Da Vinci's model for the Mona Lisa and extract DNA from inside her bones to recreate her face.

Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo is thought to be buried in a crypt beneath a former convent in Florence, Italy.

Gherardini's death certificate gives her resting place as the Saint Orsola convent, but there are fears her crypt has been move in the half century since her death.

Locals near the convent have said the building's remains were bulldozed into a rubbish tip 30 years ago.

Should the team find Gherardini, Professor Silvio Vincenti says they will compare DNA from her corpse to the remains of two of her children buried in other churches in Florence, and then rebuild her face.

Gherardini was the wife of a rich silk merchant, and died in 1542. She is thought by many to be the woman with the mysterious smile depicted in the famous painting.

Last year scientists with a different theory about the Mona Lisa's identity sought permission to exhume the remains of Leonardo Da Vinci. They believed the painting may be a disguised self-portrait.

Da Vinci started the Mona Lisa around 1503 and finished in 1519.

The oil on panel painting is now owned by the French government and sits in the Louvre museum in Paris, where it has led a dramatic life.
Source: couriermail.com.au

Published Apr 7 2011