Mona Lisa exhumation
“Mona Lisa ” - mysterious, intriguing work of Leonardo da Vinci still raises emotions of art historians. Recently, much attention has been paid to him by Silvano Vinceti – an Italian paintings explorer.
Let's recall that Silvano Vinceti, is the same art historian, who gained fame in early 2011 with a new, controversial interpretation of the image. He came to the conclusion that Mona Lisa was a man. His hypothesis based on visible in the eyes initials of L and S. L stands for the name of Leonardo and S as the first letter of the name Salai. And that was a name of painter’s lover.
Of course, his claim so far is only a theory. But the historian wants to gain hundred percent of certainty. Therefore, together with a group of Italian researchers from the University of Florence he wants to unearth Gioconda. Exactly he wants to find the remains of a woman considered by most historians as the prototype of the Mona Lisa. It is about Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo di Bartolemeo. At the request of this man, according to a functioning version of events, Leonardo da Vinci, agreed to paint a portrait of his beloved.
In 2008, the archives of the monastery of Sant ‘Orsola in Florence , the death certificate of Lisa Gioconda was found. This aroused hope in the scientists that in the basement of the monastery to this day , there are remains buried. Silvano Vinceti plans to find them. First, using GPR he wants to find graves, then by using the radioactive carbon age of the C14 he wants to examine the remains. On this basis, he hopes to determine which may belong to Gioconda. Then, he plans to extract DNA and compare it with DNA samples obtained from corpses of women's children who are buried for sure in the basilica in Florence.
Why all this? Researchers want to find Gioconda’s skull. If it is maintained in good condition, they will carry out its reconstruction and compare it with the face of Mona Lisa. In this way they will determine who she really was.
This is not Vincenti’s first archaeological research and reconstruction. He has few such “exhumation ” processes on his account. Thanks to them, he managed to establish how exactly looked like a great painter, a precursor of Baroque painting - Caravaggio.