Identity of Mona Lisa revealed, researchers say
The identity of the Mona Lisa may have been solved after German researchers claimed to have put a name to her face.
The debate over the name of Leonardo da Vinci's famous subject has raged for centuries and is one of the art world's greatest riddles.
Some suggested the master artist had amalgamated a variety of subjects to create his ideal woman, used his mother for a model, or even posed himself.
However, academics at Heidelberg University say scribbled notes in the margin of a book 500 years old are the evidence that proves the woman with the strange half-smile, whose portrait hangs in the Louvre in Paris, is Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Giocondo, a Florentine merchant.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
The debate over the name of Leonardo da Vinci's famous subject has raged for centuries and is one of the art world's greatest riddles.
Some suggested the master artist had amalgamated a variety of subjects to create his ideal woman, used his mother for a model, or even posed himself.
However, academics at Heidelberg University say scribbled notes in the margin of a book 500 years old are the evidence that proves the woman with the strange half-smile, whose portrait hangs in the Louvre in Paris, is Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Giocondo, a Florentine merchant.