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Team to Unearth Bones... of Mona Lisa?

'CSI art researchers' aim to find out who she is once and for all

By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff

Posted Apr 6, 2011 2:58 AM CDT

(Newser) – Florence researchers are about to excavate the bones of the woman they believe served as the model for Mona Lisa. Their hope is that facial reconstruction will prove once and for all if Lisa Gherardini was the subject of the Leonardo da Vinci portrait that has mesmerized viewers for centuries. The painting has long also been known as La Gioconda, linking it to Gherardini's husband, Francesco del Giocondo, who commissioned da Vinci to paint his wife. Digging will begin later this month at a convent in central Florence where Gherardini was buried in 1542.

The same research team last year unearthed bones of the artist Caravaggio and discovered a possible cause of his death 400 years earlier. Researchers this time will hunt for Gherardini's specific tomb at the convent using radar and seeking the remains of a woman in her 60s who died in the mid-1500s, reports the Guardian. They'll carry out carbon dating and DNA tests to link remains to Gherardini's children's remains, also buried in Florence. (Click for more Mona Lisa mysteries.)

Who's that girl? Researchers might soon unearth her bones to find out for certain.
Who's that girl? Researchers might soon unearth her bones to find out for certain.   (Wikipedia)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 12 comments
Count-Spatula
Apr 6, 2011 7:41 PM CDT
Has it already been 3 months since the last asinine Mona Lisa theory? We get 4 a year for the last ten years.
JoeQ
Apr 6, 2011 3:20 PM CDT
No need to dig her up. Here's what she looks like: http://www.thelaughingstock.co.uk/acatalog/mona_lisa_fullsize.jpg
Reader587
Apr 6, 2011 10:22 AM CDT
Leave the lady buried within the convent. Show some respect! I wouldn't want my mother dug up in 400 years...not that anyone is around to care at that point. But it just ain't right.

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