Mona Lisa's True Identity Revealed

The real identity of the Mona Lisa has been revealed, a group of German academics says. Experts at the Heidelberg University library found notes scribbled in the margins of a book, dated October 1503, that they say confirm what many art historians have long thought to be true: Lisa Gherardini, the wife of the wealthy Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo, was the model for Leonardo da Vinci's legendary portrait, Reuters reports. According to the experts, Agostino Vespucci, a Florentine official and an acquaintance of Leonardo, wrote the comments, which mention that the artist was working on three paintings at the time, one of them Lisa del Giocondo's portrait. Art historians are hailing the discovery as a breakthrough. "There is no reason for any lingering doubts 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." (Artinfo, January 15, 2008)

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source NY Art Magazine