Italian experts are closing in on conclusive evidence of the identity of the sitter for Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Art historians believe that model was Lisa Del Giocondo neé Gherardini, wife of wealthy Florentine merchant Francesco Del Giocondo, who died in a convent in the Tuscan capital in the mid-16th century.
Upcoming DNA tests on the “most significant” skeleton in a batch unearthed in the convent will provide clinching proof of her identity.
The tests aim to find out if the bones exhumed in 2012 date back to the same period as that of the model who sat for Leonardo, whose enigmatic half-smile thrills visitors to Paris’s Louvre museum and has become one of the most replicated images in the world’s cultural industry.
Read the full, original story: DNA tests could confirm Mona Lisa model’s identity
