Da Vinchi’s “Mona Lisa” came to light

We all are curious to know who the lady was behind the famous painting of Leonardo Da Vinci “Mona Lisa”. Hundreds of researches have been made to find the truth behind the picture. But none have been able claim that they have found the reality.

Recently a news has rocked the world. Some German academics believe they have solved the centuries –old mystery behind the identity of the “Mona Lisa” in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous portrait.
Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Geocondo, has long been seen as the most likely model for the sixteenth- century painting. But art historians have often wondered whether the smiling woman may actually have been Da Vinci’s lover,his mother or the artist himself.
Now, experts at the Heidelberg University library say dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book by its owner in October 1503 confirm once and for all that Lisa del Giocondo was indeed the model for one of the most famous portrait in the world.
“All doubts about the identity of the Mona Lisa have been eliminated by a discovery by Dr Armin Schlechter,” a manuscript expert, the library said in a statement on Monday.
Until now, only “scant evidence” from sixteenth-century documents had been available. “This left lots of room for interpretation and there were many different identities put forward,” the library said.
The notes were made by a Florentine city official, Agostino Vespucci-an acquaintance of the artist-in a collection of letters by Roman orator Cicero.
The comments compare Leonardo to the ancient Greek artist Apelles and say he was working on three paintings at the time, one of them a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo.
Art experts, who have already dated the painting to this time, say the Heidelberg discovery is a break through and the earliest mention that links the merchant’s wife with the portrait. “There is no reason for any lingering doubt that this is another woman,” Leipzig University art historian Frank Zoellner told German radio. “One could even say that books written about all this in the past few years were unnecessary, had we known.”

The woman was first linked to the painting in around 1550 by Italian official Giorgio Vasari, the library said, but added there had been doubts about Vasaris reliability and that the inferences were drawn almost five decades after the painting was completed.

The Heidelberg notes were actually discovered over two years ago in the library by Schlechter, a spokeswoman said.

Although the findings had been printed in the library, s public catalogue, they had not been widely publicized and had received little attention until a German broadcaster decided to do some recording at the library.

The painting, which hangs in the Louvre in Paris, is also known as La Giaconda, meaning the happy or joyful woman in Italian, a title which also suggests the woman’s married name.