FLORENCE, ITALY – Scientists in Florence cracked open the family tomb of Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo, the beguiling model who sat for Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa portrait. They hopes to compare her son’s DNA to that of a skeleton believed to be her own.
Her family tomb in the Martyrs’ Crypt behind the main altar of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence contains the remains of Gherardini’s husband Bartolomeo Del Giocondo, who commissioned the world’s most famous painting, and of his two sons, Piero and Bartolomeo.
The family tomb was opened Friday for the first time in 300 years. The results of the tests are expected by late September. The long-running hunt for the iconic da Vinci model culminated when researchers in Florence uncovered the base of a 15th-century altar in St Ursula, which they firmly believed led to the tomb containing the remains of Mona Lisa.