Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa smile. The secret of Mona Lisa's mysterious smile was revealed by doctors. The mystery of the painting "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci

The enigmatic smile is far from the only secret of the Mona Lisa. For many years, art historians could not come to an opinion who exactly is depicted in the picture. Until now, there are several most common versions. According to one of them, the woman in the painting is Lisa del Giocondo, the third wife of the wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. There are those who claim that in 1503, the date of the start of work on the painting, Leonardo was commissioned a portrait of Mrs. Giocondo.

Giocondo in Italian means "carefree".

Others believe that Da Vinci portrayed the wife of a silk merchant in another portrait that has not come down to us, and the mysterious lady, whose portrait he painted for about 4 years, is Isabella of Aragon, the wife of the artist's patron, the Duke of Milan.

Still others claim that the painting is dated incorrectly. Her time is 1512-1516 and the lady depicted on the canvas is the wife of Giuliano Medici, who ruled Milan during these years.

Mona in the title of the picture means madam or mistress. In Russian, the picture can be called "Mrs. Liza."

Another version is that the "Mona Lisa" is the artist himself in a female form. According to some digital analysis, the features of the great painter on one of the self-portraits exactly match the appearance of his most famous one, and all this is a hoax of a genius.

The secret of her smile

Yes, the woman who put such before the scientists has a mysterious smile. However, art historians say that there is no secret, and the whole thing is only in the unique sfumato technique, the name of which is translated as smoky or disappearing. This is a unique combination of strokes with which the artists convey the feeling of air, softening the outline of figures, tones and halftones. According to neuroscientists, our peripheral vision is able to perceive only large details, while the central one is able to perceive small ones. If you look at the Gioconda directly, focusing on the eyes of the model, leaving her lips to peripheral vision, it seems that a smile slides over them, but as soon as you look at the lips, that is, look at them and see with central vision - it disappears. The same effect explains the melting smile of the Mona Lisa when moving away or moving in different directions from the picture.

But a simple scientific explanation does not suit romantics, who consider it unimportant how Gioconda smiles, but why she smiles is much more mysterious. It is known that in the first version of the painting, Mona Lisa did not even think about a smile, only later the artist made corrections to the canvas. The melting smile gave rise to the myth of the romance of a beautiful model and a great artist, carefully hidden from a jealous husband who, according to all the laws of the genre, was much older than his charming wife. This legend does not stand up to criticism, because for all possible models of the painter, husbands and lovers were much younger than Leonardo, who by the time the canvas was written was already over fifty.

What is the Mona Lisa smiling at? Apparently, this is destined to forever remain a secret, without which great art is unthinkable.

"Mona Lisa", she is "La Gioconda" - a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, located in the Louvre (Paris, France), one of the most famous works of painting in the world.

Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo (Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo) was painted by Leonardo da Vinci around 1503-1519. It is believed that this is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a silk merchant from Florence. del Giocondo in Italian sounds like a cheerful or playing. According to the writings of biographer Giorgio Vasari, Leonardo da Vinci painted this portrait for 4 years, but he never finished it.Mona Lisa or Gioconda - the canvas of the great artist Leonardo da Vinci is the most mysterious work of painting to date. So many mysteries and secrets are associated with it that even the most experienced art historians sometimes do not know what is actually drawn in this picture.
One of the mysteries is that under ultraviolet and infrared light, this picture looks completely different. The original Mona Lisa, which was dug up under a layer of paint using a special camera, was different from what visitors now see in the museum. She had a broader face, a more accentuated smile and different eyes.
Another secret is that the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows and eyelashes. There is an assumption that in the Renaissance, most women looked like this, and this was a tribute to the fashion of that time. Women of the 15th-16th century got rid of any facial hair. Others claim that the eyebrows and eyelashes actually were, but were worn out over time. A certain researcher Kott, who is studying and carefully researching this work of the great master, debunked many myths about the Mona Lisa. For example, there was once a question about the Mona Lisa's hand. From the side, even an inexperienced gas can see that the hand is bent in a very bizarre way. However, Kott found on the hand the smoothed features of the cape, the colors of which faded over time and it began to seem that this hand itself had a strange unnatural shape. Thus, we can safely say that the Mona Lisa at the time of its writing was very different from what we see now. Time has mercilessly distorted the picture to such an extent that many are still looking for such secrets of the Mona Lisa, which simply do not exist.
And with the help of infrared transillumination, the engineer managed to see the preliminary sketches that the genius of the Renaissance made on canvas. According to Kott, these drawings prove that da Vinci was an ordinary person, and he was characterized by difficulties in the creative process, lack of inspiration. "He hesitated, changed the position of the model's hands," says the researcher. In addition, he managed to find out that Leonardo first depicted a landscape, and then painted a human figure over it.
The secret of the Mona Lisa is linked in the most precise mathematical calculation of Leonardo, who by that time had developed the secret of the painting formula. With the help of this formula and precise mathematical calculations, a work of terrifying power came out from under the brush of the master. The strength of her charm is comparable to the living and animated, and not drawn on the board. There is a feeling that the artist painted the Mona Lisa in an instant, as if by clicking a camera, and did not draw it for 4 years. In an instant, he caught her sly glance, a fleeting smile, one single movement, which was embodied in the picture. No one is destined to unravel how the great master of painting managed to do this and will remain a secret forever.

Who is Mona Lisa?

Many copies were broken in the course of disputes regarding the establishment of the true identity of the lady depicted in the portrait. The Italians call her "Gioconda", which means "carefree, frivolous woman." In French, the word La Joconde has a similar meaning, giving rise to many thoughts and theories about Mona Lisa's smile.

One popular theory suggests that this lady is the Duchess Isabella of Aragon. For 11 years, da Vinci was the artist of the family of the Duke of Milan and could well paint a portrait of the duchess, calling it "Mona Lisa".

Other researchers claim that the painting may depict the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici, one of Leonardo da Vinci's patrons.

A relatively recent idea has been the suggestion by New York School of Visual Arts employee Lillian Schwartz that the Mona Lisa is a female version of da Vinci himself. Through digital analysis, she found that some of the facial features of Leonardo da Vinci and Mona Lisa match remarkably well.

Despite the above theories, it is now universally recognized that Leonardo immortalized the image of Lisa Gherardini, the third wife of the richest Florentine merchant, with silk fabrics Francesco del Giocondo. And the word "Mona", as pointed out by Giorgio Vasari, who wrote and published a biography of Leonardo da Vinci in 1550, is usually used instead of the Italian word "Madonna", translated into Russian meaning "lady" or "madame". Thus, the name "Mona Lisa" simply means "Lady Lisa".

How does she smile?

Mona Lisa's mysterious smile is a source of inspiration for some and cruel despair for others. In 1852, Luc Maspero, a French painter, threw himself out of the window of the fourth floor of a hotel in Paris and fell to his death. His suicide note stated that he chose death after years of trying to understand the mystery of Mona Lisa's smile. Today, visitors to the Louvre are asking themselves and others the same question: how does she smile anyway?

The Italians answer this question by referring to the sfumato technique that was developed by da Vinci. In Italian, sfumato means "disappearing like smoke" or "haze". The use of this technique introduced ambiguity and blurring into the portrait, leaving the possibility of its interpretation to the imagination of the viewer. This method uses a special combination of tones and colors, resulting in the illusion of depth and volume.

Dr. Margaret Livingston, a Harvard neurologist, explains the mystery behind the Mona Lisa's smile by referring to the human eye. The part of our organ of vision involved in direct vision allows us to recognize details, colors and read small print, while the peripheral parts of the eye read shadows, distinguish between achromatic (black and white) colors, and also capture movement.

When a person looks at the Mona Lisa, the "direct gaze" area is focused on her eyes, leaving the peripheral area of ​​her mouth. Since peripheral vision is less precise and lacks detail, the shadows on Mona Lisa's cheekbones increase the curvature of her smile.

However, once the viewer looks at the Mona Lisa's mouth, the "direct gaze" area does not read the shadow, and the face in the portrait no longer appears to be smiling so broadly. Thus, the appearance and disappearance of Mona Lisa's smile actually lies in the peculiarities of the eyes of the beholder.

No matter how many theories have been created, Mona Lisa remains a mystery today. The brilliant brush of Leonardo da Vinci, like centuries ago, amazes, admires and inspires everyone who has ever looked at the Mona Lisa.

May 6th, 2017

Her enigmatic smile is mesmerizing. Some see it as divine beauty, others - secret signs, others - a challenge to norms and society. But everyone agrees on one thing - there is something mysterious and attractive in it.

What is the secret of the Mona Lisa? Versions are countless. Here are the most common and intriguing.

This enigmatic masterpiece has puzzled researchers and art historians for centuries. Now, Italian scientists have added another aspect of intrigue by claiming that da Vinci left a series of very small letters and numbers in the painting. When viewed under a microscope, the letters LV can be seen in Mona Lisa's right eye.

And in the left eye there are also some symbols, but not as noticeable as the others. They resemble the letters CE or the letter B.

On the arch of the bridge, against the background of the picture, there is an inscription either “72”, or “L2” or the letter L, and the number 2. Also in the picture there is the number 149 and the fourth erased number after them.

Today, this painting, 77x53 cm in size, is stored in the Louvre behind thick bulletproof glass. The image, made on a poplar board, is covered with a grid of craquelures. It survived a number of not very successful restorations and darkened noticeably over five centuries. However, the older the picture becomes, the more people it attracts: the Louvre is visited annually by 8-9 million people.

Yes, and Leonardo himself did not want to part with the Mona Lisa, and perhaps this is the first time in history when the author did not give the work to the customer, despite the fact that he took the fee. The first owner of the picture - after the author - King Francis I of France was also delighted with the portrait. He bought it from da Vinci for incredible money at that time - 4000 gold coins and placed it in Fontainebleau.

Napoleon was also fascinated by Madame Lisa (as he called Gioconda) and transferred her to his chambers in the Tuileries Palace. And the Italian Vincenzo Perugia stole a masterpiece from the Louvre in 1911, took it to his homeland and hid with her for two whole years until he was detained while trying to transfer the picture to the director of the Uffizi Gallery ... In a word, at all times the portrait of a Florentine lady attracted, hypnotized, delighted. ..

What is the secret of her attraction?

Version #1: classic

The first mention of the Mona Lisa we find in the author of the famous "Biographies" Giorgio Vasari. From his work, we learn that Leonardo undertook "to complete for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, and after working on it for four years, left it incomplete."

The writer admired the skill of the artist, his ability to show "the smallest details that the subtlety of painting can convey", and most importantly, the smile, which "is so pleasant that it seems as if you are contemplating a divine rather than a human being." The art historian explains the secret of her charm by the fact that “while painting the portrait, he (Leonardo) kept people who played the lyre or sang, and there were always jesters who supported her cheerfulness and removed the melancholy that painting usually imparts to portraits performed.” There is no doubt: Leonardo is an unsurpassed master, and the crown of his skill is this divine portrait. In the image of his heroine there is a duality inherent in life itself: the modesty of the pose is combined with a bold smile, which becomes a kind of challenge to society, canons, art ...

But is it really the wife of the silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, whose surname became the second name of this mysterious lady? Is the story about the musicians who created the right mood for our heroine true? Skeptics dispute all this, referring to the fact that Vasari was an 8-year-old boy when Leonardo died. He could not personally know the artist or his model, so he presented only information given by the anonymous author of the first biography of Leonardo. Meanwhile, the writer and in other biographies there are controversial places. Take, for example, the story of Michelangelo's broken nose. Vasari writes that Pietro Torrigiani hit a classmate because of his talent, and Benvenuto Cellini explains the injury with his arrogance and arrogance: copying the frescoes of Masaccio, he ridiculed every image in the lesson, for which he got in the nose from Torrigiani. In favor of Cellini's version is the complex character of Buonarroti, about whom there were legends.

Version #2: Chinese mother

Lisa del Giocondo (nee Gherardini) really existed. Italian archaeologists even claim to have found her tomb in the monastery of Saint Ursula in Florence. But is she in the picture? A number of researchers claim that Leonardo painted the portrait from several models, because when he refused to give the painting to the Giocondo cloth merchant, it remained unfinished. The master improved his work all his life, adding features and other models - thus he received a collective portrait of the ideal woman of his era.

The Italian scientist Angelo Paratico went further. He is sure that Mona Lisa is Leonardo's mother, who was actually ... Chinese. The researcher spent 20 years in the East, studying the connection of local traditions with the Italian Renaissance, and found documents showing that the father of Leonardo, the notary Piero, had a wealthy client, and that he had a slave that he brought from China. Her name was Katerina - she became the mother of a Renaissance genius. It is precisely by the fact that Eastern blood flowed in Leonardo's veins that the researcher explains the famous "Leonardo's handwriting" - the master's ability to write from right to left (this is how entries in his diaries were made). The researcher also saw oriental features in the face of the model, and in the landscape behind her. Paratico proposes to exhume Leonardo's remains and analyze his DNA to confirm his theory.

The official version says that Leonardo was the son of the notary Piero and the "local peasant woman" Katerina. He could not marry a rootless woman, but married a girl from a noble family with a dowry, but she turned out to be barren. Katerina raised the child for the first few years of his life, and then the father took his son to his house. Almost nothing is known about Leonardo's mother. But, indeed, there is an opinion that the artist, separated from his mother in early childhood, tried all his life to recreate the image and smile of his mother in his paintings. This assumption was made by Sigmund Freud in the book “Childhood Memories. Leonardo da Vinci" and it has won many supporters among art historians.

Version #3: Mona Lisa is a man

Viewers often note that in the image of Mona Lisa, despite all the tenderness and modesty, there is some kind of masculinity, and the face of the young model, almost devoid of eyebrows and eyelashes, seems boyish. The famous researcher of the Mona Lisa Silvano Vincenti believes that this is no accident. He is sure that Leonardo posed ... a young man in a woman's dress. And this is none other than Salai, a student of da Vinci, painted by him in the paintings “John the Baptist” and “Angel in the Flesh”, where the young man is endowed with the same smile as Mona Lisa. However, the art historian made such a conclusion not only because of the external similarity of the models, but after studying high-resolution photographs, which made it possible to discern Vincenti in the eyes of the model L and S - the first letters of the names of the author of the picture and the young man depicted on it, according to the expert .

"John the Baptist" Leonardo Da Vinci (Louvre)

This version is also supported by a special relationship - Vasari hinted at them - a model and an artist, which, perhaps, connected Leonardo and Salai. Da Vinci was unmarried and had no children. At the same time, there is a denunciation document where an anonymous person accuses the artist of sodomy over a certain 17-year-old boy, Jacopo Saltarelli.

Leonardo had several students, with some of them he was more than close, according to a number of researchers. Freud also talks about homosexuality of Leonardo, who supports this version with a psychiatric analysis of the biography and the diary of the genius of the Renaissance. Da Vinci's notes about Salai are also seen as an argument in favor. There is even a version that da Vinci left a portrait of Salai (since the painting is mentioned in the will of the master’s student), and from him the painting came to Francis I.

By the way, the same Silvano Vincenti put forward another assumption: as if the picture depicts a certain woman from the retinue of Ludovik Sforza, at whose court in Milan Leonardo worked as an architect and engineer in 1482-1499. This version appeared after Vincenti saw the numbers 149 on the back of the canvas. According to the researcher, this is the date the painting was painted, only the last number was erased. Traditionally, it is believed that the master began to paint Gioconda in 1503.

However, there are many other candidates for the title of Mona Lisa who compete with Salai: these are Isabella Gualandi, Ginevra Benci, Constanta d'Avalos, the libertine Caterina Sforza, a certain secret mistress of Lorenzo Medici and even Leonardo's nurse.

Version number 4: Gioconda is Leonardo

Another unexpected theory hinted at by Freud was confirmed in the studies of the American Lillian Schwartz. Mona Lisa is a self-portrait, Lilian is sure. An artist and graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York in the 1980s compared the famous "Turin Self-Portrait" of an already quite elderly artist and a portrait of Mona Lisa and found that the proportions of the faces (head shape, distance between the eyes, forehead height) are the same.

And in 2009, Lillian, along with amateur historian Lynn Picknett, gave the public another incredible sensation: she claims that the Shroud of Turin is nothing more than a print of Leonardo's face, made using silver sulfate on the principle of a camera obscura.

However, not many supported Lillian in her research - these theories are not among the most popular, in contrast to the following assumption.

Version #5: Down Syndrome Masterpiece

Gioconda suffered from Down syndrome - this was the conclusion in the 1970s by the English photographer Leo Vala after he came up with a method that allows you to "turn" the Mona Lisa in profile.

At the same time, the Danish doctor Finn Becker-Christianson diagnosed Gioconda with his diagnosis: congenital facial paralysis. An asymmetrical smile, in his opinion, speaks of mental disorders up to idiocy.

In 1991, the French sculptor Alain Roche decided to embody the Mona Lisa in marble, but nothing came of it. It turned out that from a physiological point of view, everything in the model is wrong: the face, the arms, and the shoulders. Then the sculptor turned to the physiologist, Professor Henri Greppo, who attracted Jean-Jacques Conte, a specialist in hand microsurgery. Together they came to the conclusion that the right hand of the mysterious woman does not rest on the left, because it is possibly shorter and could be prone to convulsions. Conclusion: the right half of the model's body is paralyzed, which means that the mysterious smile is also just a cramp.

The gynecologist Julio Cruz and Ermida collected a complete "medical record" of Gioconda in his book "A look at Gioconda through the eyes of a doctor." The result is such a terrible picture that it is not clear how this woman lived at all. According to various researchers, she suffered from alopecia (hair loss), high blood cholesterol, exposure of the neck of her teeth, loosening and falling out, and even alcoholism. She had Parkinson's disease, lipoma (a benign fatty tumor on her right arm), strabismus, cataracts and iris heterochromia (different eye color) and asthma.

However, who said that Leonardo was anatomically accurate - what if the secret of genius is precisely in this disproportion?

Version number 6: a child under the heart

There is another polar "medical" version - pregnancy. American gynecologist Kenneth D. Keel is sure that Mona Lisa crossed her arms over her stomach reflexively trying to protect her unborn baby. The probability is high, because Lisa Gherardini had five children (the first-born, by the way, was named Piero). A hint of the legitimacy of this version can be found in the title of the portrait: Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo (Italian) - "Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo." Monna is an abbreviation for ma donna - Madonna, mother of God (although it also means "my lady", lady). Art critics often explain the genius of the painting just by the fact that it depicts an earthly woman in the image of the Mother of God.

Version #7: Iconographic

However, the theory that the Mona Lisa is an icon where an earthly woman took the place of the Mother of God is popular in itself. This is the genius of the work and therefore it has become a symbol of the beginning of a new era in art. Previously, art served the church, power and nobility. Leonardo proves that the artist is above all this, that the most valuable thing is the creative idea of ​​the master. And the great idea is to show the duality of the world, and the image of Mona Lisa, which combines divine and earthly beauty, serves as a means for this.

Version #8: Leonardo is the creator of 3D

This combination was achieved using a special technique invented by Leonardo - sfumato (from Italian - "disappearing like smoke"). It was this pictorial technique, when paints are applied layer by layer, that allowed Leonardo to create an aerial perspective in the picture. The artist applied countless layers of these layers, and each was almost transparent. Thanks to this technique, light is reflected and scattered across the canvas in different ways - depending on the angle of view and the angle of incidence of light. Therefore, the facial expression of the model is constantly changing.

Mona Lisa is the first 3D painting in history, the researchers conclude. Another technical breakthrough of a genius who foresaw and tried to bring to life many inventions embodied centuries later (aircraft, tank, diving suit, etc.). This is also evidenced by the version of the portrait kept in the Madrid Prado Museum, written either by da Vinci himself or by his student. It depicts the same model - only the angle is shifted by 69 cm. Thus, experts believe, they were looking for the right point in the image, which will give the 3D effect.

Version number 9: secret signs

Secret signs are a favorite topic of Mona Lisa researchers. Leonardo is not just an artist, he is an engineer, inventor, scientist, writer, and he probably encoded some universal secrets in his best pictorial creation. The most daring and incredible version was made in the book, and then in the movie The Da Vinci Code. This is, of course, a fictional novel. However, researchers are constantly building no less fantastic assumptions based on certain symbols found in the picture.

Many assumptions are connected with the fact that another one is hidden under the image of Mona Lisa. For example, the figure of an angel, or a feather in the hands of a model. There is also a curious version of Valery Chudinov, who discovered in the Mona Lisa the words Yara Mara - the name of the Russian pagan goddess.

Version #10: cropped landscape

Many versions are connected with the landscape, against which the Mona Lisa is depicted. Researcher Igor Ladov discovered a cyclicity in it: it seems that it is worth drawing several lines to connect the edges of the landscape. Just a couple of centimeters is not enough for everything to fit together. But after all, on the version of the painting from the Prado Museum there are columns that, apparently, were in the original. Nobody knows who cut the picture. If they are returned, the image becomes a cyclical landscape, which symbolizes that human life (in the global sense) is enchanted just like everything else in nature...

It seems that there are as many versions of the mystery of the Mona Lisa as there are people trying to explore the masterpiece. There was a place for everything: from admiration for unearthly beauty to the recognition of complete pathology. Everyone finds something of their own in Gioconda, and perhaps this is where the multidimensionality and semantic layering of the canvas manifested itself, which gives everyone the opportunity to turn on their imagination. Meanwhile, the secret of Mona Lisa remains the property of this mysterious lady, with a slight smile on her lips...

Today, experts say that the elusive half-smile of the Gioconda is a deliberately created effect that Leonardo da Vinci used more than once. This version arose after the recent discovery of an early work, La Bella Principessa (The Beautiful Princess), in which the artist uses a similar optical illusion.

The mystery of Mona Lisa's smile is that it is noticeable only when the viewer looks above the woman's mouth in the portrait, but once you look at the smile itself, it disappears. Scientists explain this with an optical illusion, which is created by a complex combination of colors and shades. This is facilitated by the features of the peripheral vision of a person.

Da Vinci created the effect of an elusive smile using the so-called “sfumato” technique (“obscure”, “indefinite”) - blurry outlines and specially applied shadows around the lips and eyes visually change depending on the angle from which a person looks at the picture. So the smile comes and goes.

For a long time, scientists argued about whether this effect was created consciously and intentionally. Discovered in 2009, the portrait of La Bella Principessa proves that da Vinci practiced this technique long before the creation of the Mona Lisa. On the face of the girl - the same barely noticeable half-smile, like Mona Lisa.

Comparing the two paintings, scientists concluded that da Vinci also applied the effect of peripheral vision there: the shape of the lips visually changes depending on the angle of view. If you look directly at the lips - the smile is not noticeable, but if you look higher - the corners of the mouth seem to rise up, and the smile appears again.

Professor of psychology and expert in visual perception Alessandro Soranzo (Great Britain) writes: "A smile disappears as soon as the viewer tries to catch it." Under his leadership, scientists conducted a series of experiments.

To demonstrate the optical illusion in action, volunteers were asked to look at da Vinci's canvases from different distances and, for comparison, at the painting by his contemporary Pollaiolo "Portrait of a Girl". The smile was only noticeable in da Vinci paintings, depending on a certain angle of view. When blurring images, the same effect was observed. Professor Soranzo has no doubt that this is an optical illusion deliberately created by da Vinci, and he developed this technique over several years.

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For quite some time now, researchers have been trying to find the remains of the woman who was once a model for Leonardo da Vinci himself. The search takes place on the territory of Florence under the monastery dedicated to St. Ursula.

Disputes and debates about the mysterious stranger have not subsided so far, but it is possible that the answer will be revealed in the near future. Researchers believe that they have finally discovered a place where this legendary woman can be. As soon as her remains are found, geneticists can reconstruct the appearance of the Mona Lisa from the skull and compare it with the original of the great master. The researchers believe that similarities will be found.

The mystery of the painting "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci

The most truthful version of the creation of the picture can be considered that da Vinci attracted the wife of a local merchant, Lisa Gerardini del Giocondo, as a model for painting the picture. Her husband Francesco allegedly commissioned the portrait himself.

For a long time it was generally unclear who is the prototype for the creation of the picture. Researchers from Italy, led by Silvano Vincheti, professor of the National Committee, found in the archive chronicles a certificate of the death of a merchant. In the book of the dead, it was recorded that this woman was buried in the monastery, where she spent the last years of her life. In the monastery of St. Ursula served as a nun Marietta, the eldest daughter of Liza, who took her mother to her. Currently, the monastery is in an abandoned state.

The ongoing excavations made it possible to find an old brickwork, the thickness of which was one meter. A woman's skull was found under the altar, followed by a skeleton. The discovered find inspired Silvano Vincheti so much that he hastened to continue the search without fail and even put forward a hypothesis that he had finally found the famous Mona Lisa. But after that, several more skeletons were found, and archaeologists did not try to find a sensational find at all.

Despite a number of failures, Vencheti does not despair of finding the remains that belonged to the merchant. With the help of georadar, another burial was found in the masonry. At a personal press conference, Florentine scientists spoke about their guess that all the dead women. Those who were not nuns were buried, laying their bodies in a row. Later burials were located above the earlier ones. The most recent skeleton found, according to scientists, most likely could have belonged to Maria del Riccio, who died in 1609, there is an entry about this in the book of the dead.

Archaeologists at the conference said that the skeleton of Mona Lisa, as soon as it is found, will definitely undergo a genetic examination. Italian scientists have DNA samples of the daughters of Gioconda, taken from the graves of the Church of the Most Holy Annunciation, located in Florence. After this procedure, historians suggest starting work on recreating the face of the merchant.

It is known that the canvas with the image of Mona Lisa is also called Gioconda. In 2005, records left by an official named Agostino Vespucci were found in the church archives, they said that da Vinci worked simultaneously on 3 paintings, which included the portrait of the same Lisa del Giocondo.

But, despite such records, many scientists are inclined to the version that the artist was clearly not a merchant's wife posing.

There is a version that the image of a mysterious woman, presented by Leonardo, is invented by the author himself, it is essentially collective.

Very popular is the idea that the face of the genius himself is captured in the picture. This hypothesis can be verified only by comparing the created image on the da Vinci skull with the image in the picture. Vincheti has been trying for many years to obtain permission from the Italian government to exhume the body of the great artist, who rests in the castle of Ambaoise, but he is constantly refused.

Leonardo's most beloved student is also considered a model, which is why a mysterious smile was painted on the face of the portrait. The unconventional orientation of the great master has been talked about for quite some time, and they say about the picture that it can depict the relationship of two men.

Vincheti found in the library of Nantes a manuscript of Leonardo, written in his favorite way - mirror recording. This work contains information that the picture should be viewed with a magnifying glass. The scientist hastened to ask permission to work with the canvas from the French government, because the Mona Lisa is in the Louvre. In the right eye of the merchant's wife, the historian found the letters "LV", apparently, the initials of the author himself, and the letter "S" was found in the left eye.

This letter could mean the word "Salai", which translates as - imp. That was the name of da Vinci's student, who later became his sitter, his name was Giano Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno. The young man entered the role of an apprentice to Leonardo at the age of 10, while the author was 38 at that time.

Salai acted as a model for many of da Vinci's paintings. Including the famous "John the Baptist", whose appearance resembles the face of Mona Lisa. Who knows, maybe one of the main mysteries of mankind will soon be solved.

Video - Mona Lisa Mystery