Remains of woman's sons to be exhumed in bid to find Da Vinci's Mona Lisa | Daily Mail Online comments Researchers believe the woman who inspired the Mona Lisa painting was Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo A Florentine family tomb was opened up this afternoon for the first time in centuries in a bid to identify the bones of a woman who is believed to be the model in Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa portrait. Researchers believe the woman who inspired the artist's 16th century painting which now hangs in the Louvre, Paris, was Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo, a merchant's wife who lived across the street from de Vinci. Last year, a tomb in a former St Ursula convent in Florence was opened and several skeletons found. Experts reckon the skeletons there could be the remains of Gherardini. In a bid to correctly identify the woman, samples will now be taken from the Gherardini family tomb in the Martyrs' Crypt in Santissima Annunziata basilica where her husband and two sons are buried. A round hole was cut in the stone floor just big enough for a person to wriggle through.

Speaking at the crypt today, geologist Antonio Moretti said the remains had an inscribed stone indicating they belonged to the family of Lisa Gherardini's husband and sons. Scroll down for video Silvano Vinceti (centre), head of Italy's National Committee for the Promotion of Historic and Cultural Heritage, looks on as researchers open the tomb in the stone church floor above the family crypt of Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo - Lisa's husband - at the Santissima Annunziata basilica in Florence today The tomb was opened for the first time in centuries in a bid to identify the bones of Gherardini. Above, one of the researchers inside the crypt Samples will now be taken from the Gherardini family tomb in the Martyrs' Crypt, where Lisa's husband and two sons are buried Silvano Vinceti, head of Italy's national committee for cultural heritage, said: 'Right now we are carrying out carbon-14 tests on three of the eight skeletons found in St Ursula, which could be the age Lisa Gherardini was when she died. 'The carbon-14 test will tell us which of the three dates back to the 1500s.

RELATED ARTICLES Share 'Only then will we know which skeleton to do the final DNA test on.' It is believed Lisa's husband Francesco Del Giocondo commissioned the portrait to celebrate either Lisa's pregnancy or the purchase of a house around 1502 and 1503. An engraving at the site of the tomb of Francesco del Giocondo Painter, sculptor, inventor, genius: Leonardo da Vinci After Franceso's death, Lisa became a nun. She died in 1542 at the age of 63 and was said to be buried near the convent's altar. This type of burial was common which is why researchers are carrying out a number of tests to check they have the right bones. If the team think they have a positive match, Vinceti plans to commission a virtual reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini's face, based on the bone structure, and compare it to Leonardo's painting. 'If we succeed, we can finally resolve three questions which have obsessed historians and art-lovers worldwide,' Vinceti said. 'Was Gherardini the model for the Mona Lisa? Or was it some other model, as some people say?

Or is it just a construction of the painter's fantasy?' Leonardo is famous for the huge range of his genius, ranging from painting to sculpture to anatomy. He is known not only for paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper but for conceiving modern machines like helicopters and tanks many centuries before they were finally built. Art historian Silvano Vinceti kneels down above the family grave of Lisa Gherardini while geologist Antonio Moretti looks up from within the tomb The Real Mona Lisa Turns 535 | The Huffington Post The Real Mona Lisa Turns 535 06/16/2014 01:14 pm ET | Updated Aug 16, 2014 370 Dianne Hales Author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered, just released in paperback, and LA BELLA LINGUA and a widely published, award-winning freelance journalist ASSOCIATED PRESS No street bears her name. No plaques mark where she lived. Although her mysterious smile has enchanted millions, Lisa Gherardini, born on June 15, 1479, is almost invisible in her hometown.

After centuries of neglect, Florence is celebrating the 535th birthday of its most famous daughter with a festival this month. But who was the real woman everyone recognizes yet no one knows? Mona (Madame) Lisa Gherardini descended from an ancient clan of Tuscan knights who lorded over a wide swath of Chianti before taking up residence (and arms) within the walls of Florence. The family -- among the wealthiest and most bellicose feudal warlords -- referred to their fierce temperament as Gherardiname or "Gherardini-ness." By the time of Lisa's birth, the Gherardini glory had faded. Her first home was a converted wool shop on a squalid street in a working class neighborhood. Lisa's family eventually moved to rented rooms off Via Ghibellina, where her grandparents lived just steps away from Ser Piero da Vinci, father of the renowned artist. At age fifteen, Lisa was married to a widowed silk merchant almost twice her age. Ambitious and avaricious, Francesco del Giocondo (1465-1538) blustered through Florence, pouncing on profits wherever he could find them.

Only one person softened his choleric temper: the woman who became stepmother to his young son and went on to give birth to six children. Mona Lisa's life spanned the most tumultuous chapters in the history of Florence, decades of war, rebellion, invasion, siege -- and of the greatest artistic outpouring the world has ever seen. Amid a galaxy of artistic stars, none outshone Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who began Lisa's portrait around 1503. Why did the universal genius of the Renaissance turn down more prestigious commissions and choose a 24-year-old Fiorentina as his model? After delving deep into Lisa's history, I am convinced that the master of "sapere vedere" (knowing how to see) glimpsed something special in her, perhaps her indomitable Gherardini spirit shining bright. Leonardo kept Lisa's portrait with him for the rest of his life, infusing it with all that he had learned about painting -- and about being human. After a court summoned Leonardo to Milan in 1506 to complete a long-disputed commission, Lisa's family was caught in a whirl of personal crises and political upheavals.

Her sixth child, a boy named Giocondo, survived for only a month. Her younger sister, forced into a nunnery for lack of a dowry, was accused of committing "obscenities" with local youths during a late-night rendezvous. Her daughter Camilla, who entered a convent at age twelve, died at nineteen. Lisa's truculent husband twice faced charges of usury, was briefly jailed as a Medici sympathizer but ultimately rose to high political posts after the once-mighty dynasty reclaimed power. Before dying at age 73, Francesco arranged for his "noble-spirited" wife to live with their son Piero. Instead, Lisa took up residence in Sant'Orsola, the convent where her youngest daughter Marietta had taken vows. Defying her husband's instructions, Lisa chose, upon her death at age 63 in 1542, to rest for eternity among nuns rather than in the family crypt. Forensic sleuths are attempting to identify her remains among several skeletons recently excavated from the convent ruins. The French King Francis I, Leonardo's final patron, enshrined Lisa's portrait in the lavish royal bathing suite at Fontainebleau Palace.

Louis XIV moved "her" to Versailles. Napoleon, besotted by "Madame Lisa," kept her in his bedroom at the Tuilleries. After two centuries of display at the Louvre, the Mona Lisa continues to inspire poems, plays, songs and endless copies and caricatures. Why? Leonardo's masterpiece did more than revolutionize art with breakthroughs in perspective, proportion and optics. Through his distinctive sfumature (subtle shadings created by feather-light brush strokes), Leonardo breathed life into his portrait of Lisa Gherardini. In her eyes and especially in her smile, we see and sense the soul of a real woman. And the more we learn about her -- as a proud Florentine, daughter, wife, mother and muse -- the more fascinating she becomes. 1 Via Squazza is still "fetid." Five hundred years after residents complained of the stench from a clogged municipal drain, the fetid street where Lisa Gherardini was born still smells. 2 Her baptism was archived. The sixth line of this archival record identifies Lisa & Camilla di Antonmaria Gherardini, baptized on the 15th day of June, 1479.

3 The nickname has meaning. Lisa’s husband Francesco del Giocondo, a silk merchant like these men painted by Ghirlandaio, inherited the nickname of his great grandfather, a jovial wine barrel maker dubbed “giocondo” (the merry one). In Italy, Lisa’s portrait is known as La Gioconda -- a play on her husband’s name and on the Italian for a joyful woman. 4 We know where she lived. Lisa lived with her husband and their family in this home, extensively renovated, on Via della Stufa. As was common at the time, two of her six children did not survive childhood. 5 Leonard was here. And so was Mona's husband. When Leonardo returned to Florence in 1500, he lived in the monastery at Santissima Annunziata, where his father Ser Piero managed legal affairs for the friars and Lisa’s husband Francesco del Giocondo supplied altar cloths. 6 She was camera-ready. Centuries before the invention of the camera, Leonardo captured the compelling vibrancy of a photograph in his portrait of Lisa Gherardini. 7 Her family took vows here.

Lisa’s younger sisters and daughter Camilla took religious vows at the convent of San Domenico di Cafaggio in Florence. 8 The del Giocondo crypt has been opened. Forensic sleuths are trying to identify the remains of Lisa’s biological son Piero, buried in the del Giocondo crypt in this private chapel in Santissima Annunziata. 9 Researches hope to find her remains here. Lisa died and was buried at the convent of Sant’Orsola, where investigators have removed several bodies in the hope of identifying her skeleton. 10 Her descendants carry on her legacy today. The author Dianne Hales with the 15th-generation descendants of Lisa Gherardini, the Princesses Natalia and Irina Guicciardini Strozzi, at their family winery near San Gimignano. Follow Dianne Hales on Twitter: More: Scientist Finds Hidden Portraits Underneath “Mona Lisa” Introduction Using reflective light technology, French scientist Pascal Cotte has found several images hidden beneath the surface of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece.

According to widely accepted historical wisdom, Leonardo Da Vinci painted his Renaissance masterwork “Mona Lisa” sometime between 1503 and 1517, while he worked in Florence and later in France. Beyond those vague details, the painting’s origins have been draped in mystery. Some believe Leonardo created more than one version of the painting, while theories as to the painting’s inspiration ranged from Princess Isabella of Naples to an unnamed courtesan, the artist’s mother or his male assistant (and possible lover), Gian Giacomo Caprotti, better known as Salaí. Pascal Cotte digital reproduction of the painting he believes is beneath the “Mona Lisa.” (Credit: Brinkworth Films) Since 1550, when the Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari identified the painting’s subject as Lisa del Giocondo, also known as Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant, she has been the leading contender for the “Mona Lisa” crown.

(The Italian name for the painting is “La Gioconda.”) According to the Louvre Museum in Paris, where the painting is housed, Gherardini’s husband could have commissioned the painting to commemorate the birth of the couple’s second son in 1502. In 2004, the Louvre gave French scientist Pascal Cotte, co-founder of Lumiere Technology in Paris, access to the “Mona Lisa” for the purposes of analysis and study. Using a technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM), which he pioneered, Cotte projected a series of “intense” lights onto the painting using a camera to take measurements of the lights’ reflections. Cotte then used these measurements to reconstruct what was contained between the layers of paint. This is certainly not the first time that the world’s most famous painting has been subjected to such in-depth scrutiny. Just in recent years, the “Mona Lisa” has been examined using high-tech methods such as infrared inspections and multi-spectral scanning. Still, Cotte claims LAM can provide a deeper analysis than those techniques. Pascal Cotte. On the left is a digital reconstruction of what he claims to have found underneath the Mona Lisa.

(Credit: Brinkworth Films) At a press conference in Shanghai this week, Cotte announced his findings, which are currently causing serious buzz—and generating controversy—in the international art world. In addition to a second seated figure, which Cotte believes depicts the “real” Mona Lisa, his analysis uncovered the shadowy outline of yet another figure (with a larger head and nose) and a Madonna-esque image with an etched pearl headdress. In a statement, Cotte boldly argued that his results “shatter many myths and alter our vision of Leonardo’s masterpiece forever. When I finished the reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini, I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different to ‘Mona Lisa’ today. This is not the same woman.” The Louvre, for its part, has declined to comment, but Cotte’s claims have already drawn fire from many experts. Martin Kemp, a former art history professor at the University of Oxford, praised Cotte’s “ingenious” techniques but told CNN that his idea of another portrait hiding under the existing one is “untenable” and that he remains convinced that the Mona Lisa is Lisa del Giocondo.

According to Kemp: “There are considerable changes during the course of the making of the portrait–as is the case with most of Leonardo’s paintings. I prefer to see a fluid evolution from a relatively straightforward portrait of a Florentine women into a philosophical and poetic picture that has a universal dimension.” Light technology used on the famous painting. (Credit: Brinkworth Films) Andrew Graham-Dixon, an art historian whose documentary “The Secrets of the Mona Lisa” features Cotte’s research, is more of a believer. On the heels of Cotte’s announcement this week, he told BBC News that “I have no doubt that this is definitely one of the stories of the century.

There will probably be some reluctance on the part of the authorities at the Louvre in changing the title of the painting because that’s what we’re talking about–it’s goodbye Mona Lisa, she is somebody else.” Article Details: Scientist Finds Hidden Portraits Underneath “Mona Lisa” Author Scientist Finds Hidden Portraits Underneath “Mona Lisa” URL lisa del giocondo : definition of lisa del giocondo and synonyms of lisa del giocondo (English) Antonmaria di Noldo Gherardini Lucrezia del Caccia Lisa del Giocondo (née Gherardini; 15 June 1479 – 15 July 1542 or ca. 1551), also known as Lisa Gherardini, Lisa di Antonio Maria (or Antonmaria) Gherardini and Mona Lisa, was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany in Italy . Her name was given to Mona Lisa , her portrait commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance . Little is known about Lisa's life.

Born in Florence and married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local official, she was mother to five children and led what is thought to have been a comfortable and ordinary middle-class life. Lisa outlived her husband, who was considerably her senior. Centuries after Lisa's death, Mona Lisa became the world's most famous painting [1] and took on a life separate from Lisa, the woman. Speculation by scholars and hobbyists made the work of art a globally recognized icon and an object of commercialization. In 2005, Lisa was definitively identified as the model for the Mona Lisa. Contents 6 Further reading Early life and family Lisa's Florentine family was old and aristocratic but over time had lost its influence. [2] They were well off but not wealthy, and lived on farm income in a city that was among the largest in Europe and economically successful, while there were great disparities in wealth among its inhabitants.

[3] Antonmaria di Noldo Gherardini, Lisa's father, had lost two wives, Lisa di Giovanni Filippo de' Carducci, whom he married in 1465, and Caterina Rucellai, whom he married in 1473. Both died in childbirth. [4] Lisa's mother was Lucrezia del Caccia, daughter of Piera Spinelli and Gherardini's wife by his third marriage in 1476. [4] Gherardini at one time owned or rented six farms in Chianti that produced wheat, wine and olive oil and where livestock was raised. [5] Lisa was born in Florence on 15 June 1479 on Via Maggio, [4] although for many years it was thought she was born on one of the family's rural properties, Villa Vignamaggio just outside Greve. [6] She is named for Lisa, a wife of her paternal grandfather. [7] The eldest of seven children, Lisa had three sisters, one of whom was named Ginevra, and three brothers, Giovangualberto, Francesco, and Noldo.

[8] The family lived in Florence, originally near Santa Trinita and later in rented space near Santo Spirito , most likely because they were not able to afford repairs to their former house when it was damaged. Lisa's family moved to what today is called Via dei Pepi and then near Santa Croce, where they lived near Ser Piero da Vinci, Leonardo's father. [9] They also owned a small country home in St. Donato in the village of Poggio about 32 kilometres (20 mi) south of the city. [10] Noldo, Gherardini's father and Lisa's grandfather, had bequeathed a farm in Chianti to the Santa Maria Nuova hospital. Gherardini secured a lease for another of the hospital's farms and, so that he could oversee the wheat harvest, the family spent summers there at the house named Ca' di Pesa. [5] Marriage and later life On 5 March 1495, Lisa married Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo, a modestly successful cloth and silk merchant, becoming his third wife at age 15.

Lisa's dowry was 170 florins and the San Silvestro farm near her family's country home, a sign that the Gherardini family was not wealthy at the time and reason to think she and her husband loved each other. [11] The property lies between Castellina and San Donato in Poggio, near two farms later owned by Michelangelo . [9] Neither poor nor among the most well-to-do in Florence, the couple lived a middle-class life. Lisa's marriage may have increased her social status because her husband's family may have been richer than her own. [11] Francesco is thought to have benefited because Gherardini is an "old name". [12] They lived in shared accommodation until 5 March 1503, when Francesco was able to buy a house next door to his family's old home in the Via della Stufa. Leonardo is thought to have begun painting Lisa's portrait the same year. [13] [14] Central Florence . Francesco and Lisa lived on Via della Stufa (red), about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) north of the Arno River .

Lisa's parents lived closer to the river, at first north and later south (purple). Lisa and Francesco had five children: Piero, Camilla, Andrea, Giocondo, and Marietta, four of them between 1496 and 1507. [15] Lisa lost a baby daughter in 1499. [10] Lisa also raised Bartolomeo, the son of Francesco and his second wife, Camilla di Mariotto Rucellai, who was about a year old when his mother died. Lisa's stepmother, Caterina di Mariotto Rucellai, and Francesco's first wife were sisters, members of the prominent Rucellai family. Camilla and Marietta became Catholic nuns. Camilla took the name Suor Beatrice and entered the convent of San Domenico di Cafaggio, where she was entrusted to the care of Antonmaria's sister, Suor Albiera and Lisa's sisters, Suor Camilla (who was acquitted in a scandalous visitation by four men at the convent) and Suor Alessandra.

[16] Beatrice died at age 18 [16] and was buried in the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella . [17] Lisa developed a relationship with Sant'Orsola, a convent held in high regard in Florence, where she was able to place Marietta in 1521. Marietta took the name Suor Ludovica and became a respected member of the convent in a position of some responsibility. [18] Francesco became an official in Florence. He was elected to the Dodici Buonomini in 1499 and to the Signoria in 1512, where he was confirmed as a Priori in 1524. He may have had ties to Medici family political or business interests. In 1512 when the government of Florence feared the return of the Medici from exile, Francesco was imprisoned and fined 1,000 florins. He was released in September when the Medici returned. [17] [19] In one account, Francesco died in the plague of 1528.

Lisa fell ill and was taken by her daughter Ludovica to the convent of Sant'Orsola, where she died about four years later at the age of 63. [20] [21] In a scholarly account of their lives, Francesco was nearly 80 years old when he died in 1539. Lisa may have lived until at least 1551, when she would have been 71 or 72. [10] In June 1537 in his will among many provisions, Francesco returned Lisa's dowry to her, gave her personal clothing and jewelry and provided for her future. Upon entrusting her care to their daughter Ludovica and, should she be incapable, his son Bartolomeo, Francesco wrote, "Given the affection and love of the testator towards Mona Lisa, his beloved wife; in consideration of the fact that Lisa has always acted with a noble spirit and as a faithful wife; wishing that she shall have all she needs...". [22] Mona Lisa Main article: Mona Lisa Like other Florentines of their financial means, Francesco's family members were art lovers and patrons.

His son Bartolommeo asked Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri to paint a fresco at the family's burial site in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata di Firenze . Andrea del Sarto painted a Madonna for another member of his family. [17] Francesco gave commissions to Leonardo for a portrait of his wife and to Domenico Puligo for a painting of Saint Francis of Assisi . He is thought to have commissioned Lisa's portrait to celebrate both Andrea's birth and the purchase of the family's home. [14] Mona Lisa fulfilled 15th- and early 16th century requirements for portraying a woman of virtue. Lisa is portrayed as a faithful wife through gesture—her right hand rests over her left. Leonardo also presented Lisa as fashionable and successful, perhaps more well-off than she was. Her dark garments and black veil were Spanish-influenced high fashion; they are not a depiction of mourning for her first daughter, as some scholars have proposed. The portrait is strikingly large; its size is equal to that of commissions acquired by wealthier art patrons of the time. This extravagance has been explained as a sign of Francesco and Lisa's social aspiration.

[23] The theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 and its travels to Asia and North America during the 1960s and 1970s contributed to the painting's iconization and fame. [24] Leonardo had no income during the spring of 1503, which may in part explain his interest in a private portrait. [19] [25] But later that year, he most likely had to delay his work on Mona Lisa when he received payment for starting The Battle of Anghiari , which was a more valuable commission and one he was contracted to complete by February 1505. [26] In 1506 Leonardo considered the portrait unfinished. [27] He was not paid for the work and did not deliver it to his client. [28] The artist's paintings traveled with him throughout his life, and he may have completed Mona Lisa many years later in France, [12] in one estimation by 1516. [29] Agostino Vespucci 's margin note The painting's title dates to 1550.

An acquaintance of at least some of Francesco's family, [10] Giorgio Vasari wrote, "Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife" [27] ( Italian : Prese Lionardo a fare per Francesco del Giocondo il ritratto di mona Lisa sua moglie.). [30] The portrait's Italian (La Gioconda) and French (La Joconde) titles are Lisa's married name as well as nickname—in English, "jocund" or "the happy one". [12] Speculation assigned Lisa's name to at least four different paintings and her identity to at least ten different people. [31] [32] By the end of the 20th century, the painting was a global icon that had been used in more than 300 other paintings and in 2,000 advertisements, appearing at an average of one new advertisement each week. [33] In 2005, an expert at the University Library of Heidelberg discovered a margin note in the library's collection that established with certainty the traditional view that the sitter was Lisa.

The note, written by Agostino Vespucci in 1503, states that Leonardo was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. [34] The Mona Lisa has been in custody of France since the 16th century, when it was acquired by King Francis I ; however, after the French Revolution it came into the possession of the people. [35] Today about 6 million people visit the painting each year at the Louvre in Paris , where it is part of a French national collection. [36] References 1000+ images about Mona Lisa Del Giocondo on Pinterest | Sculpture, Janet jackson and Facebook Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas Mona Lisa Del Giocondo Scientist Finds Hidden Portraits Underneath “Mona Lisa” - History in the Headlines Scientist Finds Hidden Portraits Underneath “Mona Lisa” December 9, 2015 By Sarah Pruitt Share Who was the Real Mona Lisa? Get the full story.

Share this: Scientist Finds Hidden Portraits Underneath “Mona Lisa” Author Scientist Finds Hidden Portraits Underneath “Mona Lisa” URL Google The French scientist Pascal Cotte has spent more than a decade shining strong lights on the “Mona Lisa” and measuring the reflections in order to map the layers of paint beneath its surface. This week, he rocked the art world by announcing that his pioneering Layer Amplification Method (LAM) has uncovered a second portrait underneath the famous painting. According to Cotte, this seated female figure, looking off to the side instead of straight ahead and unsmiling, is the “real” Mona Lisa, rather than Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant who is widely believed to have been Leonardo da Vinci’s model. According to widely accepted historical wisdom, Leonardo Da Vinci painted his Renaissance masterwork “Mona Lisa” sometime between 1503 and 1517, while he worked in Florence and later in France. Beyond those vague details, the painting’s origins have been draped in mystery.

Some believe Leonardo created more than one version of the painting, while theories as to the painting’s inspiration ranged from Princess Isabella of Naples to an unnamed courtesan, the artist’s mother or his male assistant (and possible lover), Gian Giacomo Caprotti, better known as Salaí. Pascal Cotte digital reproduction of the painting he believes is beneath the “Mona Lisa.” (Credit: Brinkworth Films) Since 1550, when the Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari identified the painting’s subject as Lisa del Giocondo, also known as Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant, she has been the leading contender for the “Mona Lisa” crown. (The Italian name for the painting is “La Gioconda.”) According to the Louvre Museum in Paris, where the painting is housed, Gherardini’s husband could have commissioned the painting to commemorate the birth of the couple’s second son in 1502. In 2004, the Louvre gave French scientist Pascal Cotte, co-founder of Lumiere Technology in Paris, access to the “Mona Lisa” for the purposes of analysis and study.

Using a technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM), which he pioneered, Cotte projected a series of “intense” lights onto the painting using a camera to take measurements of the lights’ reflections. Cotte then used these measurements to reconstruct what was contained between the layers of paint. This is certainly not the first time that the world’s most famous painting has been subjected to such in-depth scrutiny. Just in recent years, the “Mona Lisa” has been examined using high-tech methods such as infrared inspections and multi-spectral scanning. Still, Cotte claims LAM can provide a deeper analysis than those techniques. Pascal Cotte. On the left is a digital reconstruction of what he claims to have found underneath the Mona Lisa. (Credit: Brinkworth Films) At a press conference in Shanghai this week, Cotte announced his findings, which are currently causing serious buzz—and generating controversy—in the international art world. In addition to a second seated figure, which Cotte believes depicts the “real” Mona Lisa, his analysis uncovered the shadowy outline of yet another figure (with a larger head and nose) and a Madonna-esque image with an etched pearl headdress.

In a statement, Cotte boldly argued that his results “shatter many myths and alter our vision of Leonardo’s masterpiece forever. When I finished the reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini, I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different to ‘Mona Lisa’ today. This is not the same woman.” The Louvre, for its part, has declined to comment, but Cotte’s claims have already drawn fire from many experts. Martin Kemp, a former art history professor at the University of Oxford, praised Cotte’s “ingenious” techniques but told CNN that his idea of another portrait hiding under the existing one is “untenable” and that he remains convinced that the Mona Lisa is Lisa del Giocondo. According to Kemp: “There are considerable changes during the course of the making of the portrait–as is the case with most of Leonardo’s paintings. I prefer to see a fluid evolution from a relatively straightforward portrait of a Florentine women into a philosophical and poetic picture that has a universal dimension.” Light technology used on the famous painting. (Credit: Brinkworth Films) Andrew Graham-Dixon, an art historian whose documentary “The Secrets of the Mona Lisa” features Cotte’s research, is more of a believer.

On the heels of Cotte’s announcement this week, he told BBC News that “I have no doubt that this is definitely one of the stories of the century. There will probably be some reluctance on the part of the authorities at the Louvre in changing the title of the painting because that’s what we’re talking about–it’s goodbye Mona Lisa, she is somebody else.” Tags Lisa del Giocondo - Wikipedia, Photos and Videos Lisa del Giocondo NEXT GO TO RESULTS [51 ..

100] WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE Detail of Mona Lisa (1503–06) by Leonardo da Vinci , Louvre Born Convent of Saint Orsola, Florence , Italy Known for Suor Beatrice (Camilla del Giocondo) Andrea del Giocondo Suor Ludovica (Marietta del Giocondo) Also raised: Bartolomeo del Giocondo Parent(s) Lisa del Giocondo ( Italian pronunciation: [ˈliːza del dʒoˈkondo] ; née Gherardini [ɡerarˈdiːni] ; June 15, 1479 – July 15, 1542), also known as Lisa Gherardini, Lisa di Antonio Maria (or Antonmaria) Gherardini and Mona Lisa, was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany in Italy . Her name was given to Mona Lisa , her portrait commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance . Little is known about Lisa's life.

Born in Florence and married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local official, she was a mother to five children and led what is thought to have been a comfortable and ordinary middle-class life. Lisa outlived her husband, who was considerably her senior. Centuries after Lisa's death, Mona Lisa became the world's most famous painting [1] and took on a life separate from Lisa, the woman. Speculation by scholars and hobbyists made the work of art a globally recognized icon and an object of commercialization. In 2005, Lisa was definitively identified as the model for the Mona Lisa. [2] Contents 7 Further reading Early life and family[ edit ] Lisa's Florentine family was old and aristocratic but over time had lost their influence. [3] They were well off but not wealthy, and lived on farm income in a city that was among the largest in Europe. While economically successful, there were great disparities in wealth among its inhabitants.

[4] Antonmaria di Noldo Gherardini , Lisa's father, had lost two wives, Lisa di Giovanni Filippo de' Carducci, whom he married in 1465, and Caterina di Mariotto Rucellai, whom he married in 1473. Both died in childbirth. [5] Lisa's mother was Lucrezia del Caccia, daughter of Piera Spinelli, and Gherardini's wife by his third marriage in 1476. [5] Gherardini at one time owned or rented six farms in Chianti that produced wheat, wine and olive oil and where livestock was raised. [6] Lisa was born in Florence on June 15, 1479, on Via Maggio, [5] although for many years it was thought she was born on one of the family's rural properties, Villa Vignamaggio just outside Greve . [7] She is named for Lisa, a wife of her paternal grandfather.

[8] The eldest of seven children, Lisa had three sisters, one of whom was named Ginevra, and three brothers, Giovangualberto, Francesco, and Noldo. [9] The family lived in Florence, originally near Santa Trinita and later in rented space near Santo Spirito , most likely because they were not able to afford repairs to their former house when it was damaged. Lisa's family moved to what today is called Via dei Pepi , and then near Santa Croce , where they lived near Ser Piero da Vinci, Leonardo's father. [10] They also owned a small country home in St. Donato in the village of Poggio about 32 kilometres (20 mi) south of the city. [11] Noldo, Gherardini's father and Lisa's grandfather, had bequeathed a farm in Chianti to the Santa Maria Nuova hospital. Gherardini secured a lease for another of the hospital's farms and, so that he could oversee the wheat harvest, the family spent summers there at the house named Ca' di Pesa.

[6] Marriage and later life[ edit ] On 5 March 1495, Lisa married Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo, a modestly successful cloth and silk merchant, becoming his third wife at age 15. Lisa's dowry was 170 florins and the San Silvestro farm near her family's country home, a sign that the Gherardini family was not wealthy at the time and reason to think she and her husband loved each other. [12] The property lies between Castellina and San Donato in Poggio, near two farms later owned by Michelangelo . [10] Neither poor nor among the most well-to-do in Florence, the couple lived a middle-class life. Lisa's marriage may have increased her social status because her husband's family may have been richer than her own. [12] Francesco is thought to have benefited because Gherardini is an "old name". [13] They lived in shared accommodation until 5 March 1503, when Francesco was able to buy a house next door to his family's old home in the Via della Stufa.

Leonardo is thought to have begun painting Lisa's portrait the same year. [14] [15] Central Florence . Francesco and Lisa lived on Via della Stufa (red), about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) north of the Arno River . Lisa's parents lived closer to the river, at first north and later south (purple). Lisa and Francesco had five children: Piero, Camilla, Andrea, Giocondo, and Marietta, four of them between 1496 and 1507. [16] Lisa lost a baby daughter in 1499. [11] Lisa also raised Bartolomeo, the son of Francesco and his second wife, Camilla di Mariotto Rucellai, who was about a year old when his mother died. Lisa's stepmother, Caterina di Mariotto Rucellai, and Francesco's first wife were sisters, members of the prominent Rucellai family . Camilla and Marietta became Catholic nuns.

Camilla took the name Suor Beatrice and entered the convent of San Domenico di Cafaggio, where she was entrusted to the care of Antonmaria's sister, Suor Albiera and Lisa's sisters, Suor Camilla (who was acquitted in a scandalous visitation by four men at the convent) and Suor Alessandra. [17] Beatrice died at age 18 [17] and was buried in the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella . [18] Lisa developed a relationship with Sant'Orsola, a convent held in high regard in Florence, where she was able to place Marietta in 1521. Marietta took the name Suor Ludovica and became a respected member of the convent in a position of some responsibility. [19] Francesco became an official in Florence. He was elected to the Dodici Buonomini in 1499 and to the Signoria in 1512, where he was confirmed as a Priori in 1524. He may have had ties to Medici family political or business interests.

In 1512 when the government of Florence feared the return of the Medici from exile, Francesco was imprisoned and fined 1,000 florins. He was released in September when the Medici returned. [18] [20] In June 1537 in his will among many provisions, Francesco returned Lisa's dowry to her, gave her personal clothing and jewelry and provided for her future. Upon entrusting her care to their daughter Ludovica and, should she be incapable, his son Bartolomeo, Francesco wrote, "Given the affection and love of the testator towards Mona Lisa, his beloved wife; in consideration of the fact that Lisa has always acted with a noble spirit and as a faithful wife; wishing that she shall have all she needs…". [21] Death of Lisa del Giocondo[ edit ] Lisa del Giocondo spent her final years at Florence's Saint Orsola convent where she died in July 1542 at the age of 63. [22] Main article: Mona Lisa Like other Florentines of their financial means, Francesco's family members were art lovers and patrons.

His son Bartolomeo asked Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri to paint a fresco at the family's burial site in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata di Firenze . Andrea del Sarto painted a Madonna for another member of his family. [18] Francesco gave commissions to Leonardo for a portrait of his wife and to Domenico Puligo for a painting of Saint Francis of Assisi . He is thought to have commissioned Lisa's portrait to celebrate both Andrea's birth and the purchase of the family's home. [15] Mona Lisa fulfilled 15th- and early 16th century requirements for portraying a woman of virtue. Lisa is portrayed as a faithful wife through gesture—her right hand rests over her left. Leonardo also presented Lisa as fashionable and successful, perhaps more well-off than she was. Her dark garments and black veil were Spanish-influenced high fashion; they are not a depiction of mourning for her first daughter, as some scholars have proposed. The portrait is strikingly large; its size is equal to that of commissions acquired by wealthier art patrons of the time. This extravagance has been explained as a sign of Francesco and Lisa's social aspiration.

[23] The theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 and its travels to Asia and North America during the 1960s and 1970s contributed to the painting's iconization and fame. [24] During the spring of 1503, Leonardo had no income source, which may in part explain his interest in a private portrait. [20] [25] But later that year, he most likely had to delay his work on Mona Lisa when he received payment for starting The Battle of Anghiari , which was a more valuable commission and one he was contracted to complete by February of 1505. [26] In 1506 Leonardo considered the portrait unfinished. [27] He was not paid for the work and did not deliver it to his client. [28] The artist's paintings traveled with him throughout his life, and he may have completed Mona Lisa many years later in France, [13] in one estimation by 1516. [29] The painting's title dates to 1550.

An acquaintance of at least some of Francesco's family, [11] Giorgio Vasari wrote, "Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife" [27] ( Italian : Prese Lionardo a fare per Francesco del Giocondo il ritratto di mona Lisa sua moglie.). [30] The portrait's Italian name La Gioconda is the feminine form of her married name. In French it is known by the variant La Joconde. Though derived from Lisa's married name they have the added significance that the name derives from the word for "happy" (in English, "jocund") or "the happy one". [13] Speculation assigned Lisa's name to at least four different paintings and her identity to at least ten different people. [31] [32] By the end of the 20th century, the painting was a global icon that had been used in more than 300 other paintings and in 2,000 advertisements, appearing at an average of one new advertisement each week.

[33] Agostino Vespucci 's margin note In 2005, an expert at the University Library of Heidelberg discovered a margin note in the library's collection that established with certainty the traditional view that the sitter was Lisa. The note, written by Agostino Vespucci in 1503, states that Leonardo was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. [2] The Mona Lisa has been in custody of France since the 16th century, when it was acquired by King Francis I ; after the French Revolution , however, it came into the possession of the people. [34] Today about six million people visit the painting each year at the Louvre in Paris , where it is part of a French national collection. [35] Notes[ edit ] ^ Can Mona Lisa Rest in Peace? | The Huffington Post Can Mona Lisa Rest in Peace?

07/11/2014 11:24 am ET | Updated Sep 10, 2014 150 Dianne Hales Author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered, just released in paperback, and LA BELLA LINGUA and a widely published, award-winning freelance journalist Centuries after her death on July 15, 1542, Mona (Madame) Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo is still making headlines. Over the last two years journalists from around the world have descended upon Florence to report on dramatic excavations of skeletons that may--or may not--belong to Leonardo da Vinci's model and her family. The results of the latest round of laboratory analyses are expected soon. "What are the odds of identifying Lisa Gherardini's remains?" I asked Silvano Vinceti, a self-styled cacciatore di ossa (bones hunter) who is spearheading the high-profile quest, during an interview in Florence. "Forty percent," the chain-smoking, fast-talking, spindly-limbed former television producer replied without hesitation or explanation.

Art historians, who decry his "tomb-raiding" as a macabre stunt, put them considerably lower. "Lasciate in pace La Gioconda!" (Leave Mona Lisa in peace!) thundered Antonio Paolucci, the esteemed director of the Vatican Museums. That's not likely to happen--not when the whole world can't stop watching. No one knew the whereabouts of Mona Lisa's remains until 2007, when Giuseppe Pallanti, author of Mona Lisa Revealed, reported his discovery of her recorded death at the convent of Sant'Orsola . After her husband Francesco del Giocondo died in 1538, his widow moved to the nunnery where their youngest daughter had taken vows -- located just steps away from the family home. Upon her death in 1542, Mona Lisa was buried, not in the del Giocondo crypt in Florence's Basilica of Santissima Annunziata , but at the convent. Such arrangements were not uncommon. Privileged women who had the power to choose their place of burial, notes historian Margaret King in Women of the Renaissance, "overwhelmingly preferred to lie in community with other women" rather than with husbands or fathers.

With this final choice, a woman could refute "all the past decisions" men had made during her lifetime. Sant' Orsola, deconsecrated under Napoleon in the early 1800s, served as a tobacco processing plant and university lecture hall before deteriorating into a hulking, boarded-up, graffiti-smeared ruin (below). "The shame of Florence," an editorial writer branded it, and Florentines have long clamored for a clean-up of the urban eyesore. In 2012 Vinceti, creator of the official-sounding National Committee for the Promotion of Historic and Cultural Heritage, stepped before the floodlights of international television crews gathered at Sant'Orsola. His team of volunteers, he announced, had unearthed several skeletons in a crypt beneath the chapel. Three date back to the sixteenth century. Does one belong to Lisa Gherardini? Since hundreds of women lived and died at Sant' Orsola, the only way to find out is by matching DNA from bones or teeth to that of a known blood relative.

The prime candidate is Mona Lisa's oldest biological son Piero del Giocondo, who died at age 73 in 1569 and was buried in Santissima Annunziata (in the dark chapel to the left in the photo below). Earlier this year investigators lowered themselves into the subterranean tomb and broadcast ghoulish images of crumbling skeletons on stone shelves. At least in theory, a match between DNA from a corpse in the del Giocondo crypt and a sample from one of the Sant'Orsola bodies could identify Piero and his mother Mona Lisa. However, given the badly decomposed remains, laboratory technicians said they were not optimistic. If the tests should indicate a genetic match, Vinceti, who has no credentials in art history or forensics, says he will commission a reconstruction of Mona Lisa's face that would be "clear enough to see what she really looked like"--a claim academicians vigorously challenge . Leonardo himself might not recognize his twenty-something model on the basis of a reconstructed skull of a 63-year-old female who has been moldering in a grave for 472 years. Certainly no skeleton or reconstruction can reveal the three-dimensional woman whose smile haunts us still.

What, then, is the point of the quixotic quest? A boost for Florence tourism, insists Vinceti. A genetic identification might ignite support for restoration of blighted Sant'Orsola as a fitting resting place for Florence's long forgotten daughter. Yet far more intriguing than the bones she left behind is the life the real Mona Lisa led -- as a daughter of Renaissance Florence, a merchant's wife, a loving mother and an artist's unforgettable muse. Follow Dianne Hales on Twitter: More:

Question: Lisa Gherardini (aka Lisa del Giocondo) is better known as the?
Answer: Mona Lisa