Who was Mona Lisa ?

Last Friday, German scientists revealed the real identity of Mona Lisa after a century of speculations about the mysterious woman in the famous portrait by Leonardo da Vinci.

Lisa Gherardini is in question, the wife of the Florentine textile merchant Francesco del Giocondo, said Viet Probst, director of the Heidelberg University Library.

Probst confirmed the discovery for German television, and said that the discovery was made by the chief person in the university's section for handwriting.

Mona Lisa - Leonardo da Vinci

The identity of Mona Lisa was revealed thanks to the handwritten footnote on a document that belonged to the former owner of the famous painting.

"There is no reason for any lingering doubt 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."