MONA LISA: Archaeologists unmasked the mystery of Renaissance masterpiece

Archaeologists may have finally unmasked the mystery of the Mona Lisa Renaissance masterpiece by

Leonardo Da Vinci.

The enigmatic smile on the face of the woman in the painting has baffled art lovers for Centuries, but now experts believed to have found the tomb of the model's subject buried under the altar of a derelict Florence convent.

Carbon dating test on the bones of three women exhumed in Florence's Sant'Orsola convent points to the fact that Italian noblewoman Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, was the sitter for the Rennaissance masterpiece.

Lisa Gherardini, was the third wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo.

After the death of her husband, Gherardini went to live with her daughter Marrietta, a nun and died at age 63 in 1542. 

The researchers based their search of the chapel on research on Gherardini’s life by Italian historian Giuseppe Pallanti who found Francesco del Giocondo's will.

There, the merchant asked his younger daughter, Marietta, to take care of his ‘beloved wife,’ Lisa.

Another document known as a "Book of the Dead," found by Pallanti in a church archive showed that Lisa remained there until her death on July 15, 1542,

Only wealthy women such as Gherardini, who were not nuns, were given special burials in the convent.

The experts said, its unfortunate there are few remains, and no skull, which could have been used to reconstruct Mona Lisa's face and DNA too won't be able to pin point it, as it had been in the ground for centuries and too damages to be comparable.

Source: DailyMail