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Re: Thank you for visiting our site
Date:
Sun, 28 Dec 1997 14:20:23 EST
From: Kadour Kadour@aol.com
Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com)
To: sjfeld@erols.com
Tuesday, February 12, 1991
RESEARCHERS CLAIM PROOF OF MONA LISA'S IDENTITY
by Jeanhee Kim, Associated Press
ROME - Two researchers say they have uncovered documents that will end the controversy over the identify of the model who posed for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
U.S. art historian Janice Shell said she and Italian archivist Grazioso Sironi had come upon 16th century legal documents indicating the model was Lis, the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo.
In the 1540s, more than 20 years after the artist's death, Lisa was named as the model for the painting in Giorgio Vasari's "Lives of the Artists."
But over the years other theories were put forth, including one that the model was a mistress of Giuliano de Medici.
Shell said her examination of the documents would scuttle the theory that a de Medici mistress had posed for Leonardo.