Have they found the inspiration for Mona Lisa?
Remains of Rennaissance woman’s sons are exhumed in bid to find if she really was the model in Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting
A Florentine family tomb was opened up this afternoon for the first time in centuries in a bid to identify the bones of a woman who is believed to be the model in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa por- trait.
Researchers believe the woman who inspired the artist’s 16th century painting which now hangs in the Louvre, Paris, was Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo, a merchant’s wife who lived across the street from de Vinci.
Last year, a tomb in a former St Ursula convent in Florence was opened and several skeletons found.
Experts reckon the skeletons there could be the remains of Gherardini.
In a bid to correctly identify the woman, samples will now be taken from the Gherardini family tomb in the Martyrs› Crypt in Santissima Annunziata basilica where her husband and two sons are buried.
A round hole was cut in the stone floor just big enough for a person to wriggle through.
Speaking at the crypt today, geologist Antonio Moretti said the remains had an inscribed stone indicating they belonged to the family of Lisa Gherardini›s husband and sons.
Silvano Vinceti, head of Italy’s national committee for cultural heritage, said: ‘Right now we are carrying out carbon-14 tests on three of the eight skeletons found in St Ursula, which could be the age Lisa Gherardini was when she died.
‘The carbon-14 test will tell us which of the three dates back to the 1500s.
‘Only then will we know which skeleton to do the final DNA test on.’
It is believed Lisa’s husband Francesco Del Giocondo commissioned the portrait to celebrate either Lisa’s pregnancy or the purchase of a house around 1502 and 1503.
After Franceso’s death, Lisa became a nun. She died in 1542 at the age of 63 and was said to be buried near the convent’s altar. This type of burial was common which is why researchers are carrying out a number of tests to check they have the right bones.
If the team think they have a positive match, Vinceti plans to commission a virtual reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini’s face, based on the bone structure, and compare it to Leonardo’s painting. ‘If we succeed, we can finally resolve three questions which have obsessed historians and art-lovers worldwide,’ Vinceti said.
‘Was Gherardini the model for the Mona Lisa? Or was it some other model, as some people say? Or is it just a construction of the painter’s fantasy?’