Reuters is reporting researches in Florence have opened a tomb which they believe contain the remains of a possible relative of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
According to those involved, the tomb contains remains from silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo family, whose wife Lisa Gherardini is believed by many to be the sitter in the famous portrait. The bones will be tested for DNA matches for family connections, and if successful an image of the skull can be developed and compared to the painting.
Reuters reports
Source: ReutersResearchers opened a centuries-old Florence tomb on Friday in a search for remains that could confirm the identity of the woman whose enigmatic smile Leonardo da Vinci immortalized in the "Mona Lisa", one of the world's most famous paintings.
A round hole, just big enough for a person to wriggle through, was cut in the stone church floor above the family crypt of Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, whose wife Lisa Gherardini is thought to have sat for the Renaissance master in the early 16th century.
Theories abound about who the real Mona Lisa was, but Silvano Vinceti, a writer and researcher who heads Italy's National Committee for the Promotion of Historic and Cultural Heritage, plans to test DNA in the bones in the dank space and try to match it with those of three women buried at a convent nearby.
Historians say Gherardini - whose married name 'Gioconda' is used in Italy to refer to the Mona Lisa - spent her last years at the Saint Orsola convent, a dilapidated building where the hunt for her bones began last year.
Vinceti believes one of the three could be Lisa Gherardini.
"For centuries, historians the world over have been coming up with various theories about who this enigmatic, mysterious woman could have been," he told journalists outside the Santissima Annunziata basilica in Florence.
Vinceti hopes some of the bones lying in the cramped underground room behind the Santissima Annunziata's main altar will belong to at least one blood relation of Leonardo's muse, probably her son Piero.
Once a DNA match is made, Vinceti says an image of Gherardini's face can be generated from the Saint Orsola skull and compared with the painting, the biggest attraction in the Louvre museum in Paris.
"When we find a match between mother and child - then we will have found the Mona Lisa," he said.
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