"I know who Mona Lisa was", Italian scholar

This is cut/paste because the link is reg req.

Italian scholar Giuseppe Pallanti claims in a new book to have identified Mona Lisa, the woman whose mysterious smile has intrigued art lovers ever since Leonardo da Vinci painted her portrait 500 years ago.

Pallanti's book, Mona Lisa, Real Woman, says land registry records and other historical documents prove that she was Lisa Gherardini, born in Florence in May 1479.

"I used nothing but archival records," Pallanti told AFP in an interview. "This is not a novel."

A recent blockbuster work of fiction, The Da Vinci Code, suggests Mona Lisa was Leonardo's disguised self-portrait. Another theory is that she never existed at all.

But Pallanti said his research shows that she was, as his title asserts, a real person, who in 1495 married a wealthy Florentine silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo.

"When del Giocondo took Lisa Gherardini as his second wife, she moved up in the world," Pallanti said.

"Her husband supplied textiles to the Medici family," then the dominant force in Florentine politics and culture, he noted.

www.smh.com.au...

This is a better link,
www.corriere.it...

Interesting.
Sanc'.

By the way, if you'll look at her from a meter or so you would see a blue "aura" around her.

www.wga.hu...

I have been told since I was a kid that the painting was Leo's self portrait as a woman. I tend to believe that is most likely the case. Most artist's do all kinds of self portraits..... with Leo being the genius he was, it would not surprise me one bit that he wanted to paint himself in that light.

A very interesting read, but it really proves nothing and in the spirit of artistic freedom, I think it is best left for the viewer to place their own interpretation.(IMO) In other words, it is a lot more fun to interpret an artistic piece your own way and wonder than know the actual answers. ie. The Sphinx.




[edit on 15-9-2004 by Facefirst]

Mona Lisa burial location tenatively identified.

'Mona Lisa' died in 1542, was buried in convent

Giuseppe Pallanti - An expert on the "Mona Lisa" says he has ascertained with certainty that the symbol of feminine mystique died on July 15, 1542, and was buried at the convent in central Florence where she spent her final days.

Sant'Orsola, where she died at age 63, now disused and in ruins, is near the San Lorenzo basilica.

Pallanti, author of "Mona Lisa Revealed: The True Identity of Leonardo's Model," has spent nearly three decades combing Florence's archives.

I read about this a while ago. It may have been a theory at the time. If this guy says he now has proof then I believe it.