Has tomb of ‘real’ Mona Lisa been found?
HER likeness famously hangs in the Louvre museum in Paris.
But the location of Mona Lisa’s mortal remains has always been more of a mystery.
Now archaeologists believe they have found the tomb of the woman who is said to have modelled for Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece.
A team led by art detective Silvano Vinceti have exhumed bones belonging to three women at the Sant’Orsola convent in Florence and carried out carbon dating tests.
The results show they match the period when Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo – who is identified as the sitter in a 16th century government note – passed away at the age of 63.
She was the third wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, and died a widow in 1542 after going to live with her daughter, who was a nun.
Mr Vinceti – who leads Italy’s National Committee of Cultural Heritage – said that when combined with historical, anthropological and archaeological analysis, the carbon evidence makes it ‘very likely’ that the three-year search has found the final resting place of Gherardini.
‘There are converging elements beyond the results of the carbon tests that say we may well have found Lisa’s grave,’ he said. ‘The odds that [ some of] the bones belong to her are extremely high.’
He added that damp has rendered the remains too damaged to compare DNA with Gherardini’s sons Bartolomeo and Piero, who are bur- ied in the church of Santissima Annunziata in the city.
And even if bone testing did determine the remains belonged to Gherardini, it would not prove beyond all doubt who posed for Da Vinci.
For while most historians agree that it was indeed Gherardini, some say the Renaissance artist used a male model.
Others believe he did a disguised self-portrait or combined the features of several models.
Some six million people visit the Mona Lisa portrait each year.