Researchers to dig in convent tombs for bones of real Mona Lisa

Italian researchers say they plan to dig up bones in a Florence convent to try to identify the remains of a Renaissance woman long believed to be the model for the Mona Lisa.

The mystery of the model for Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, now in the Louvre in Paris, has puzzled scholars and art lovers for centuries and generated countless theories.

Silvano Vinceti, an art historian and the project leader, tells reporters today in Rome that the goal is to locate the remains of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a rich silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo, the Associated Press reports.

Tradition has long linked Gherardini to the painting, which is known in Italian as "La Gioconda" and in French as "La Joconde."

A few years ago, an amateur Italian historian said he had found a death certificate showing that Lisa Gherardini died on July 15, 1542, and her final resting place, the Convent of St. Ursula in central Florence.

That's where the digging will begin later his month, Vinceti says.

The project will employ such sophisticated forensic techniques as ground-penetrating radar to locate hidden tombs, carbon-dating and DNA tests.

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