Scientists are on a mission to find the model for the "Mona Lisa," they plan to dig up centuries-old graves and digitally reconstruct the face of a choice skeleton.
Experts believe the model for the famous "Mona Lisa" painting was Leonardo da Vinci's neighbor, Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo, ANSA reported.
Several skeletons found in a Florence convent last year could be the remains of the model. Experts plan to identify the most likely candidate and compare the DNA with a body believed to be her son.
"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," Silvano Vinceti, of the National Committee for the valuation of historic, cultural and environmental assets, said. "The Carbon-14 test will tell us which of the three dates back to the 1500s. Only then will we know which skeleton to do the final DNA test on"
A document believed to be written by da Vinci's scribe pinpoints a woman named "Lisa" as the woman with the famous half-smile.
"It was her, Lisa, the wife of the merchant Francesco Del Giocondo - and she lived right opposite Leonardo in Via Ghibellina," Giuseppe Pallanti, an author on the subject, said, according to ANSA.
The woman in question is believed to have become a nun at the age of 63 following the death of her husband.
Gherardini married Del Giocondo when she was only 16-years-old, he was 35.
The "Mona Lisa" could have been painted as a celebration of Gheradini's pregnancy.
If the team can link the supposed Gheradini skeleton to her relatives, a virtual reconstruction will be made from her facial bone structure and compared with the original painting, NBC News reported.
Kristina Killgrove, a bioarchaeologist at the University of West Florida is concerned about how solid the evidence will be.
"This will probably bring in some tourist dollars, but other than confirming that this is the "Mona Lisa," I don't see any scholarly relevance to it," Killgrove told NBC News. "They could figure out her diet. They could figure out if she had any old injuries or pathological conditions. But I've never seen anything written up about that. And these bones, as far as I can tell from the pictures, are in fairly poor condition."
